Wm january 2014

inside: biodiversity loss • wildlife • Africa’s bad governance • money'S TEMPTATIONS

world hunger

GMO'S Agribusiness is not the solution but part of the problem jan uary 2014 • n o. 274 • VOL X X Vi • 50 pesos • ISSN 0116-8142

World Mission Magazine 2013 CMMA AWARDEE

The Catholic Mass Media Awards Ceremony is a prestigious event in the Philippines to recognize the best in the field of mass media. Our missionary magazine, WORLD MISSION, has been a consistent winner in the competition since joining it in 2007. The year 2013, however, has witnessed a remarkable success for our magazine with its four entries making it to the finals and garnering two awards and a special citation. The awards were for the following categories: Best Family-Oriented Magazine, Best Short Story: “The Naughty Nun” by Fr. Lorenzo Carraro. Special Citation was given to the Special Feature: “Fr. Peter Geremia: Living Legend” by Fr. Dave Domingues and Fr. Jose Rebelo. The recognitions are significant acknowledgments of the good work done during the last 25 years at the service of mission and the values of the Kingdom. We thank all our staff, subscribers and friends for their continuous support.

editorial

There are evils and "evils" The Asian Catholic Monthly Magazine

www.worldmission.ph MAILING ADDRESS: 7885 Segundo Mendoza Street Villa Mendoza Subd. - Sucat 1715 Parañaque City, M.M. - PHILIPPINES TEL.: (+63-2) 829-0740/829-7481 FAX: (+63-2) 820-1422 E-Mail: wm.editor@gmail.com OWNER AND PUBLISHER: WORLD MISSION is published monthly by the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus as part of their ministry and program of missionary awareness in Asia. WORLD MISSION magazine is registered at DI–BDT and at the National Library (ISSN 0116-8142).

EDITOR: Fr. Dave C. Domingues, MCCJ REDACTION: Corazon A. Uy (secretary), Fr. Jose Rebelo,MCCJ and Fr. Lorenzo Carraro, MCCJ (staff writers) COLLABORATORS: Manuel Giraldes (Portugal), Fr. Joseph Caramazza (UK), Fr. Francesco Pierli (Kenya) and Kris Bayos (Philippines) MANAGEMENT: Fr. Raul Tabaranza, MCCJ wm.administration@gmail.com Ma. Corazon P. Molvizar (secretary) Angeles S. de Vera (circulation) PROMOTION: Fr. Dave C. Domingues, MCCJ wm.promotion@gmail.com ART & DESIGN DIRECTION: Ric M. Gindap GRAPHICS & DESIGN: Victor Garcia SUBSCRIPTION RATES: (11 issues and Calendar) Regular (Philippines):.........................P500.00/year Six months (Philippines):...........................P300.00 Overseas–Air mail: Asia................................US$35 Rest of the world.............................................US$40 DISTRIBUTION: WORLD MISSION is distributed to subscribers by mail. Entered as Second Class Mail at the Parañaque Central Post Office under Permit No. 214-89 (March 9, 1989; valid until December 31, 2013). Published monthly in Parañaque City, M.M. Composition: World Mission. Printed by Lexmedia Digital Corp.

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s the Filipino people try to rise from the rubbles left by the unprecedented calamity (Typhoon Haiyan), with a destructive power never felt before, the question “why?” cannot be avoided. And, if there are evils that are of natural origin – natural phenomena like earthquakes or furious storms – there are other kinds of evil, one of which is what we call moral evil, resulting from the effects of our own sinfulness – selfish destruction of nature; pollution of all sorts gravely affecting the rise of temperature; abuse and consequent depletion of resources (water, food, energy, etc) which alienate the poor; the blind search for profit reduces nature and its resources to mere numbers due to the greed of shameless multinationals.

Certainly, it would be irresponsible to call the “Supertyphoon Haiyan” an “act of God” or a mere natural phenomenon. Obviously, it was an outcome of humanity’s willful disregard for God’s creation, and of our continuous neglect to care for our common home – the planet Earth. Haiyan is a powerful reminder of our interconnectedness in this small planet, that what we do or fail to do matters for the ruin or welfare of everyone of us individually and collectively. And, therefore, it is a call to place the common good above our individual comforts, longings, pleasures or even needs.

We are responsible for each other and only in the measure we assume that responsibility can we properly preserve our common home and share its resources.

I see two grave sins in this respect; one is, the careless destruction of the vital resources of our planet – water pollution, gas emissions and destruction of the ozone layer, destruction of wildlife, genetic manipulation of seeds and plants to augment production at the expense of killing biodiversity, etc…just to mention a few. Two, the ir-

Dave Domingues EDITOR

Our action has to bring us to a positive effort to pollute less, consume less, destroy less in order to save more our natural resources and share them in a more fraternal spirit.

responsible denial of our wrongdoings and their effects in the face of mounting evidences of destruction we are inflicting on the planet and, therefore, on the vulnerability of the human race.

We only have to look at the little progress made at the latest annual U.N. climate change summit in Warsaw.

Wealthy and developing nations agreed to commit to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in response to climate change, but the final deal is due only to be signed in Paris in 2015 – a very meager result of a very difficult birth. This lack of political will, allied with the prevalent economic interests, continues to dictate the destruction of our common inheritance.

What answer are we called to give?

I believe that we need to take three steps: First, accept the reality – there are evils and “evils!” Those that are man-made are real and we should feel guilty for them. Second, repent of our wrongdoings and of our passiveness.

A change of heart is needed in our attitudes and inactions. This should lead us to a third step – decisive commitment and action, both at the personal and communitarian levels, not to undo the wrong we have done, for it is impossible to bring to life a tree that has been cut. Our action has to bring us to a positive effort to pollute less, consume less, destroy less in order to save more our natural resources and share them in a more fraternal spirit. Haiyan may soon be history but there are “evils” we can and should fight to foster the quality and dignity of human life for all.

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your let ters Write to: The Editor, World Mission Magazine • 7885 Segundo Mendoza Street, Villa Mendoza Subd. − Sucat 1715 Parañaque City, M.M. – Philippines • E-mail: wm.editor@gmail.com ENRICHING THE SPIRITUAL LIFE Thank you for the acknowledgment of the renewal of the gift subscription. I am glad to be a member of the large group of readers of World Mission magazine.

I do have some thoughts to share. After I read some back issues of WM, given by my niece more than a year ago, I wanted to congratulate you and express my appreciation of your magazine. It brought back memories of my 46 years dedicated service in Hong Kong and Peru, as a missionary, which I had to leave for health reasons.

I have been more than a year in the Vigil House. Your magazine has been my constant companion when free from community prayers and activities. Every issue is so substantial; very informative, inspiring, enlightening, uplifting – really enriching the spiritual life as well as providing nourishment for the mind and heart. I followed your missionaries and others in their travels and experiences.

It may interest you to know that I am going to be 75 years as a Sister of St. Paul of Chartres on April 1, and will be 95 years of age on August 13, 2014. “Still alive and kicking,” as the Irish say. Yes, still alive but cannot kick because of my wobbly steps. I thank our Lord for my 20-20 eyesight which enables me to enjoy WM. « Sr. Isabel Narciso, spc

subscribing to world mission Subscribers and friends: For your convenience, you may now remit renewal fees by: • Bank transfer (BDO, Villa Mendoza – Sucat Branch, Acct. No. 005280011577, Acct. Name: Comboni World Mission).

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MAKING A DIFFERENCE I always look forward to every issue of WM because I learn about many heroic individuals who are trying to make a difference in the world. Your stories oftentimes start off with a dim view of the world, but then, surprisingly, they introduce the reader to new ideas and advocacies of courageous people who give us a strong sense of hope and optimism. They are the stories worth telling to many people, and I certainly narrate some of them to my children over the dinner table.

To the publishers and staff behind WM, more power to you all! « Eileen Araneta, Muntinlupa City, (Received by e-mail)

CONGRATULATIONS! Congratulations to you all on your Silver Jubilee celebration!

I was very glad to see the faces of Silver Jubilee Fathers of the Comboni Missionaries in the magazine, June 2013.

I enjoy reading the magazine’s articles

which are really applicable in my mission.

Sometimes, I re-read previous issues for contemplation and reference.

May I know whether the time has already come for me to renew my subscription to World Mission? « Fr. Benedict Htay lwin, Church of Our Lady of Fatima, Philippines

VALUING LITLE THINGS In our world today, many people disregard the value of little things, because they are nothing and useless, without thinking that, without a dot, we cannot draw a circle and without a drop, the ocean will never be full. The article "Little things mean a lot" of last month’s issue was a wake up call for all of us. We are called to be faithful in small things because it is in them that our strength lies. Little things mean a lot if we know how to value them. Thank you and more power!!! « Sr. Stella Fsi, Alabang Hills

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2014

www.worldmission.ph events to remember in january 01 - Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

- World Day of Peace 05 - Solemnity of the Epiphany 12 - Baptism of the Lord 19 - Feast of the Sto. Niño

- Holy Childhood Day 25 - Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul

Village, Philippines (Received by e-mail)

Visit Our Website: www.worldmission.ph

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prayer For Evangelization

That Christians of diverse denominations may walk toward the unity desired by Christ.

inside FOR THE SAKE OF GREATER PROFIT

Massive poverty, in its different forms, continues to be an undeniable scandal in the world today. The clamor of the poor for their basic needs and rights, such as education, housing, food and equal access to land and natural resources resonates in many governments, to philanthropists and multinationals who extend “help” with immediate giving of goods and with developing projects, supposedly for the good of the people. However, the massive economic interests behind those seemingly charitable deeds, far from solving the problems of the poor, perpetuate the situation of poverty and dependency. The mantra of GMO foods to eradicate famine continues to fill pockets instead of bellies, depleting biodiversity. On the other hand, the living jewels of the rich wildlife in Africa and elsewhere across the globe are being squandered by the greed of unscrupulous people and industries, depriving the populations of their natural source of sustainable and eco-friendly tourism. All is justified for the sake of a greater profit!

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world touch

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frontiers

WM special | GMO's AGRIBUSINESS

by Leonard Pollara

The danger of gmo foods

By Fr.Shay Cullen, preda

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filipino focus | biodiversity loss

The hottest of the hot spots

By Henrylito D. Tacio, journalist

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meditation | MONEY'S TEMPTATIONS

Money is not our master

By Fr. Rinaldo Ronzani, mccj

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Words can't feed the hungry

world report | Wildlife

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Missionary vocation | Wangari Maathai

The hummingbird revolution

By Fr. Lorenzo Carraro, mccj

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THE LAST WORD

Peter’s ecstasy and an open church

By Fr. SILVANO FAUSTI, sJ

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Africa is squandering its living jewels

by Manuel Giraldes

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Letting the fox guard the hen house

missionary reflection | Africa’s bad governance

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Mobilizing the community bases

by Fr. John Converset

WORLD MISSION has the exclusive services of the following magazines for Asia: ALÉM-MAR (Portugal); MUNDO NEGRO (Spain); NIGRIZIA (Italy); NEW PEOPLE (Kenya); WORLDWIDE (South Africa), AFRIQUESPOIR (DR of Congo); ESQUILA MISIONAL (Mexico); MISION SIN FRONTERAS (Peru); and IGLESIA SINFRONTERAS (Colombia).

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w o r l dto u c h warsaw

End of U.N. climate talks

Lusa

For Philippine diplomat Yeb Saño, the close of U.N. climate talks in Warsaw, last November 23, came with an unusual prize: he can eat again. The climate envoy had embarked on a tea-and-water only fast on the first day of the talks on Nov. 11, in a symbolic push for a good outcome. “I am famished.

I am famished!” the senior climate envoy told AFP at the Warsaw National Stadium where the discussions ended in a number of consensus agreements. “My doctor says I should take it slowly, so in three days I will be eating normal food.”

Saño had pledged to fast until the last round of U.N. talks made “meaningful” progress toward fighting the climate change he blames for Super typhoon “Yolanda” (international name: “Haiyan”), which ravaged his country. “I would say, the COP (conference of parties, as these gatherings are known) did not come out with the kind of outcome I thought would have been meaningful. “But I also said

that I will be fasting for the duration of the COP. This COP is about to close so I’ll be able to eat.”

Saño’s move was also meant as a show of solidarity with his countrymen, relatives and friends left stranded and hungry after the powerful storm swept through. The climate commissioner said he was pleased the Warsaw meeting had managed to agree on creating a “loss and damage” mechanism to deal with future harm caused by climate change events that can no longer be prevented. The mechanism is meant to help poor and vulnerable countries deal with extreme weather events like storms, but also slow-onset damage like land-encroaching sea level rise or desertification.

While no single weather event can be laid at the door of climate change, scientists warn that the Earth will see ever more severe storms, droughts and sea level rise as average temperatures increase on the back of fossil fuel combustion. Saño said

he believed the typhoon that devastated the Philippines had added some impetus to this year’s round of U.N. talks. “The typhoon, I think, was in the back of everyone’s mind, there was a sense of urgency, but also a sense of solidarity and the reality of the suffering of so many people.”

Saño was worried about the scenes of destruction that will greet him when he gets home. “I stopped looking at the pictures (media's) because it is just overwhelming. It will be overwhelming, to be back," he said.

Saño’s action drew considerable attention and support at the U.N. talks, with hundreds of environment and humanitarian activists claiming to have joined his fast. The fraught negotiations ended with consensus among parties on cornerstone issues of an ambitious, global climate pact that will seek to stave off dangerous Earth warming. www.globalnation.inquirer. net/ Mariette Le Roux

Across Europe, millions are suffering from unemployment and the prospect of a long period of economic stagnation.

But no group has been harder hit than the Roma. There are more than 10 million Roma living in Europe, mostly concentrated in the Balkans and in the European Union's newest member states, especially Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Hungary.

What is truly shocking is that their living conditions have actually deteriorated since many of them became E.U. citizens.

At the same time, the majority population's attitude has become more hostile almost everywhere in Europe. − www.theguardian.com

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food waste

U.K. families throw away 24 meals a month

slavery

Millions trafficked into brothels, menial work worldwide Slavery in India ranges from bonded labor in quarries and kilns to commercial sex exploitation. It must be noted that slavery still exists in all 162 countries surveyed by Walk Free Foundation, an Australian-based anti-slavery group.

The International Labor Organization estimates that almost 21 million people are victims of forced labor. "Today some people are still being born into hereditary slavery, a staggering but harsh reality, particularly in parts of West Africa and South Asia," the report said. "Other victims are captured or kidnapped before being sold or kept for exploitation, whether through 'marriage,' unpaid labor on fishing boats, or as domestic workers. Others are tricked and lured into situations they cannot escape, with false promises of a good job or an education."

Slavery is defined by the Global Slavery Index as the possession or control of people to deny freedom and exploit them for profit or sex, usually through violence, coercion or deception. This includes indentured servitude, forced marriage and the abduction of children to serve in wars.

Nations were also ranked by prevalence of slavery per head of population. By this measure, Mauritania is worst, with almost 4% of its 3.8 million people in chains. Estimates by other organizations put the level at up to 20%. "Chattel" slavery is common in Mauritania, meaning that slave status is passed down through generations. "Owners" buy, sell, rent out or give away their slaves as gifts.

Slavery is most prevalent by population in Haiti, where a system of child labor, known as restavek encourages poor families to send their children to wealthier acquaintances. Many of these children

wind up exploited and abused. Pakistan, India, Nepal, Moldova, Benin, Ivory Coast, Gambia and Gabon have the next highest prevalence rates.

Iceland has the lowest estimated prevalence with fewer than 100 slaves.

Next best are Ireland, Br itain, New Zealand, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Luxembourg, Finland and Denmark.

Researchers said slave numbers in developed nations were higher than previously thought. "They've been allocating resources against this crime according to the tiny handful of cases that they've been aware of," Kevin Bales, lead researcher and a professor at the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation at Hull University, says.

"Our estimates are telling them that the numbers of people in slavery – whether it's in Great Britain or Finland or wherever – in these richer countries actually tend to be about six to 10 times higher than they think it is." www.catholic.org Countries with highest absolute number of slaves India - 13.9 million China - 2.9 million Pakistan - 2.1 million Nigeria - 701,000 Ethiopia - 651,000 Russia - 516,000 Thailand - 473,000 D.R. Congo - 462,000 Myanmar - 384,000 Bangladesh - 343,000

Britons are chucking out the equivalent of 24 meals a month, adding up to 4.2 million tons of food and drink every year that could have been consumed. Almost half of this is going straight from fridges or cupboards into the bin. One-fifth of what households buy ends up as waste, and around 60% of that could have been eaten.

There has been no progress in reducing meat and fish wastage, with Britons still throwing away the equivalent of 96 million chickens every year. The top three foods being thrown away uneaten in British homes are bread, potatoes and milk. The equivalent of 24M slices of bread, 5.8M potatoes and 5.9M glasses of milk are being wasted daily, while even cakes and pastries make it to the top 10 most wasted items.

The study by the government's waste advisory body, the Waste & Resources Action Program (WRAP), shows that, since 2007, avoidable household food waste has been cut by 21% to 4.2M tons, saving consumers almost £13B a year.

WRAP said that such waste should be cut a further 1.7M tons a year by 2025, saving up to £45B. Its chief executive, Dr. Liz Goodwin, called on retailers, manufacturers, governments and consumers to agree to a "major combined effort."

"Consumers are seriously worried about the cost of food and how it has increased over recent years. Yet as WRAP research shows, we are still wasting millions of tons and billions of pounds," she said.

The main reasons for the waste are shoppers buying more than they need, lack of clarity around storage and labeling and over-estimating portions, WRAP said.

The carbon associated with avoidable household food waste is like taking one out of four cars off UK roads. www. theguardian.com/Rebecca Smithers

Source: Global Slavery Index 2013, Walk Free Foundation

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“The transition from a strong cultural Catholicism to an intentional Catholicism urgently requires a new type of evangelization and a new apologetics that will respond to the questions that people have.”

– Cardinal O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, describing a “Catholic ghetto” that includes its own schools, sports leagues, unions, health systems and newspapers. www.catholicnewsagency.com

“We don’t need a power structure… the Vatican should be a “moral voice in the world [that is] credible, whether here in the States or in other parts of the world.” – Archbishop Berhane

Yesus Souraphiel, Head of Ethiopia’s Addis Ababa Archdiocese and the country’s Conference of Bishops, in an exclusive interview by NCR. www.ncronline.org

“Hunger is not just a technical problem awaiting technological solutions. Hunger is a human problem that demands solutions based on our common humanity.”

– Archbishop Francis Chullikatt, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, in his address to the Second Committee of the 68th Session of the U.N. General Assembly on agriculture development, food security and nutrition.

Hunger is caused by exclusion. Agriculture policies must promote inclusion and respect for the dignity and rights of those still on the margins of today’s society as well as respect for the well-being of future generations.”

– Idem, Ibidem

“The Catholic Church has a duty to evangelize people who can be found on the digital continent. As the church sent missionaries to Africa and the Americas, she must also engage people on the internet. The church needs to make space for the soul online.” – Msgr. Paul Tighe, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, in a keynote address at the Sixth Annual Catholic New Media Conference held at the Archdiocese of Boston. www.catholicsentinel.org

We cannot leave ecumenism in the hands of diplomats, politicians or theologians alone; we need to preach it in the parishes.”

– Svjatoslav Shevchuk, Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. www.vaticaninsider.lastampa.it superTYPHOON YOLANDA

Children in disaster zone are vulnerable Aid workers have warned that children in the disaster zone left by typhoon Haiyan are particularly vulnerable, as they set up child-focused services to mitigate the impact. UNICEF estimates that 1.7M children are among the 4.4M people in the Philippines displaced by the disaster and said it was receiving reports of missing and separated children in Tacloban and Ormoc.

"Children who are alone are particularly vulnerable to a range of risks including potential exploitation, abuse and even trafficking. These were pre-existing issues in the Philippines including Tacloban and the typhoon-affected areas," said Pernille Ironside, UNICEF's child protection specialist. The agency is working on programs to identify children and reunify families. It has also worked with Save the Children to set up centers designed to establish a daily routine for children and offer them access to coun-

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seling. "Evidence suggests that the faster children get back into school and back into normal and regular activities, the faster they will be able to recover," said David Bloomer, Save the Children's regional adviser on child protection. He said that women and children were typically more vulnerable in such situations, with much disaster management planning failing to take their needs into account. Bloomer added that the first priority was creating safe spaces, not least because of the physical safety hazards

facing children among the debris.

OXFAM said hundreds of schools had been destroyed. Others were being used as evacuation centers, said Bloomer, making it important to find alternative spaces.

Dr. Natasha Reyes, emergency coordinator for Médecins sans Frontières said the organization was seeing children with gastrointestinal infections and diarrhea, almost certainly from drinking dirty water.

The organization is providing maternal and obstetric services, while Action Against Hunger said it was setting up tents where women could breastfeed infants and receive medical and psychological support.

A new study by U.S. economists suggests that typhoons in the Philippines can lead to dramatic spikes in the mortality rate for infant girls – but not boys – up to two years after the disaster. www.theguardian.com/Tania Branigan

rome

Honorary doctorate for former Guwahati Archbishop

CANE SUGAR

Coca-Cola vows to axe suppliers guilty of land grabbing Coca-Cola has said it will cut off suppliers that do not follow guidelines to protect the land rights of local communities in developing countries. The soft drinks company also pledged to use its clout to encourage other food and beverage firms, traders – especially of soy, sugar and palm oil – as well as governments to endorse and implement voluntary U.N. guidelines on responsible governance of tenure on land, fisheries and forests. "The Coca-Cola Company believes that land grabbing is unacceptable," it said.

Coca-Cola, based in Atlanta, Georgia, said it would conduct third-party social, environmental and human rights assessments beginning in Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, India, Philippines, Thailand and South Africa, critical sourcing regions for the company. These countries are among the top 16 from which Coca-Cola sources cane sugar. Six of these countries have been identified with human rights violations by the U.S. Department of Labor. The assessments will begin with Colombia and Guatemala and will cover the other 14 countries by 2020. Sugar is a key ingredient for food and drinks firms: 51% of sugar produced ends up in processed foods including soft drinks, sweets and ice-cream. It uses the most land for food production – sugar is grown on 31M hectares, an area the size of Italy. There have

been 100 recorded large-scale land deals for sugar production occupying at least 4M hectares of land since 2000, according to the charity institution OXFAM. Coke's action plan followed an OXFAM report in October, "Sugar Rush," which said sugar, along with soy and palm oil, was driving large-scale land acquisitions and land conflicts at the expense of small-scale food producers and their families. In 2011, the global trade in raw sugar was worth $47B (£29B). Of that, $33.5B of exports came from developing countries. Yet, in spite of the risks of land conflicts associated with sugar, soy and palm oil production, a lack of transparency by food and beverage giants makes it difficult for the public to hold companies accountable.

Coca-Cola disclosed that its top cane sugar countries were Brazil, Mexico, India and named its top three company suppliers as Copersucar (Brazil), Mitr Phol (Thailand), and Dangote (Nigeria).

Coca-Cola has been accused in the past of drying up farmers' wells and destroying local agriculture in pursuit of water resources to feed its plants. There have been particularly bitter disputes in India.

Coca-Cola's operations rely on access to vast supplies of water, as it takes almost three liters to make one liter of Coca-Cola. www.theguardian.com/Mark Tran

Twelve years after the fall of the Taliban regime and its medieval justice system, Afghanistan is looking at bringing back public stoning and flogging as punishments for adultery, Human Right Watch says. − www.rt.com

The Chancellor of Urban University, Rome, Cardinal Fernando Filoni conferred honorary doctoral degree on Archbishop Emeritus Thomas Menamparampil of Guwahati, last November 14. It is in recognition of Archbishop Menamparampil’s outstanding contribution for promotion of cross cultural thought, intercultural relationships, providing health and education for poor, especially marginalized youth, and peace promotion in areas of ethnic conflict, especially in northeast India.

The prelate’s keen interest in indigenous cultures, Asian civilizations, promotion of eroding cultural and ethical values, and involvement in institutions of higher learning, especially Assam Don Bosco University. has been noteworthy. He was also instrumental in initiating some 50 schools, and 5 hospitals in Assam. Over a period of two decades, the prelate and his Joint Ecumenical Peace Team successfully led seven major peace and conflict resolution initiatives – BodoAdivasi in 1996, Kuki-Paite in 1998, Dimasa-Hmar in 2003, Karbi-Kuki in 2003, Dimasa-Karbi in 2004, Bodo-Muslim at Udalguri in 2010 and Rabha-Garo in 2011.

The Archbishop who worked more than 60 years in northeast was honored along with Professor Gerald Anderson of Hamden Connecticut, U.S.A., who had earlier been heading a theological institute in the Philippines and was responsible for many publications.

In his acceptance speech, the Archbishop urged that “we develop in ourselves the sense of mission that St. Paul had when he said, ‘I have an obligation to all peoples.’ The Apostle was sure that he would exclude no one from the universal concern he had for all communities, neither the most advanced nor the least, neither those already good, nor those who fail in their efforts.” www.en.radiovaticana.va

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VATICAN

‘Evangelii Gaudium' amounts to Francis' 'I Have a Dream' speech

Francis opens with a dream

must not be a torture chamber," but rather "an encounter with the Lord's mercy which spurs us to go on to do our best." Francis acknowledges that realizing his dream will require "a reform of the church," stipulating that "what I am trying to express here has a programmatic significance and important consequences."

Though he doesn't lay out a comprehensive blueprint for reform, he goes beyond mere hints to fairly blunt indications of direction: 4 He calls for a "conversion of the papacy," saying he wants to promote "a sound decentralization" and candidly admitting that, in recent years, "we have made little progress" on that front.

"I dream of a 'missionary option,' " Francis writes, "that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the church's customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today's world, rather than for her self-preservation." In particular, Francis calls for a church marked by a special passion for the poor and for peace.

The theme of change permeates the document. The Pope says rather than being afraid of "going astray," what the church ought to fear instead is "remaining shut up within structures that give us a false sense of security, within rules that make us harsh judges" and "within habits that make us feel safe."

Though Francis released an encyclical letter titled Lumen Fidei in June, that text was based largely on a draft prepared by Benedict XVI. "The Joy of the Gospel," designed as a reflection on the October 2012 Synod of Bishops on new evangelization, thus represents the new pope's real debut as an author. Early reaction suggests it's a tour de force.

The text comes with Francis' now-familiar flashes of homespun language. Describing an upbeat tone as a defining Christian quality, for instance, he writes that "an evangelizer must never look like someone who has just come back from a funeral!"

At another point, Francis insists that "the church is not a tollhouse." Instead, he says, "it is the house of the Father, where there is a place for everyone." At another point, he quips that "the confessional

4 He suggests that bishops' conferences ought to be given "a juridical status ... including genuine doctrinal authority."

In effect, that would amount to a reversal of a 1998 Vatican ruling under John Paul II that only individual bishops in concert with the pope, and not episcopal conferences, have such authority.

4 Francis says the Eucharist "is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak," insisting that "the doors of the sacraments" must not "be closed for simply any reason."

His language could have implications not only for divorced and remarried Catholics, but also calls for refusing the Eucharist to

Dreams can be powerful things, especially when articulated by leaders with the realistic capacity to translate them into action. That was the case 50 years ago with Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech, and it also seems to be the ambition of Pope Francis' bold new apostolic exhortation, "The Joy of the Gospel."

In effect, the 224-page document, titled in Latin Evangelii Gaudium and released by the Vatican on Nov. 26, is a vision statement about the kind of community Francis wants Catholicism to be: more missionary, more merciful, and with the courage to change.

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politicians or others who do not uphold church teaching on some matters.

4 He calls for collaborative leadership, saying bishops and pastors must use "the means of participation proposed in the Code of Canon Law and other forms of pastoral dialogue, out of a desire to listen to everyone and not simply to those who would tell him what he would like to hear."

4 Francis criticizes forces within the church who seem to lust for "veritable witch hunts," asking rhetorically: "Whom are we going to evangelize if this is the way we act?"

4 He cautions against "ostentatious preoccupation" for liturgy and doctrine as opposed to ensuring that the Gospel has "a real impact" on people and engages "the concrete needs of the present time."

On two specific matters, however, Francis rules out change: the ordination of women to the priesthood, though he calls for "a more incisive female presence" in decision-making roles, and abortion. Francis says the church's defense of unborn life "cannot be expected to change" because it's "closely linked to the defense of each and every other’s human right."

The Pope's toughest language comes in a section of the document arguing that solidarity with the poor and the promotion of peace are constituent elements of what it means to be a missionary church. Francis denounces what he calls a "crude and naĂŻve trust" in the free market, saying that left to its own devices, the market too often fosters a "throw-away culture" in which certain categories of people are seen as disposable. He rejects what he describes as an "invisible and almost virtual" economic "tyranny." Specifically, Francis calls on the church to oppose spreading income inequality and unemployment, as well as to advocate for stronger environmental protection and against armed conflict.

In the end, "The Joy of the Gospel" amounts to a forceful call for a more missionary Catholicism in the broadest sense.

The alternative, Francis warns, is not pleasant. "We do not live better when we flee, hide, refuse to share, stop giving and lock ourselves up in our own comforts," he writes. "Such a life is nothing less than slow suicide." www.ncronline.org/John L. Allen Jr.

f r o n t i e r s

THE DANGER OF GMO FOODS by

Fr. Shay Cullen, ssc | Preda Foundation

T

he pictures of the hungry children holding up placards with the single word "Food" and another that cried out "Help," these, among many others, were heart-wrenching cries of hundreds of thousands of poor people whose lives, homes, and families were wrecked by the devastating, all powerful storm to hit the Philippines last 7 November.

The memories will never go away and they bring home to us, with sharp reminder, that the food and clean water are the most basic human needs of all. In fact, this is such a powerful need that when it is unsatisfied, there is severe malnutrition, hunger, famine, starvation, and that, in turn, causes mass migration, civil unrest, demonstrations, revolutions, looting, robberies, wars, massacres, and the fall of governments.

Only when food is plentiful and evenly distributed, there is greater peace in a country and the nation can be stable and prosper. When there is justice and respect for human rights, then it is civilized and developed. Whoever can supply and control a plentiful supply of food for all will grow rich and powerful and rule forever. That seems to be the sinister plan of those who hunger and thirst for political power.

Decades ago, the powerful nations

dominated the weaker by luring or coercing poorer nations in their debt traps. Governments incurred huge debts which the people had to pay through oppressive taxes and austerity.

They were then forced to comply with the demands of greater nations to sign unequal contracts to favor the oil, mineral, pharmaceutical multinationals, and the military industrial complex. Military bases proliferated.

Once more richer and powerful nation could ride roughshod over the sovereignty of small nations especially in Africa and South America and parts of Asia and control and extract their natural resources with the connivance of the corrupted governments.

But the field officers, implementing this global strategy of the great powers had qualms of conscience and soon it was leaked to the media and a worldwide outcry against it led to the “Freedom from Debt” campaign and the Jubilee campaign.

The great political powers looked for another mechanism to control the smaller nations, the poorest and most vulnerable. Foreign aid was not enough and competing powers could offer more than the other. Through business monopoly, elite fractions that greatly inf luence democratic elections found another powerful

mechanism to exert influence that is the greatest need of all – FOOD. They saw their opportunity in the scientific development that changed the genetic makeup of the humble tomato.

It all started in 1994. The tomato had a very short shelf life; it ripened very quickly and had a shelf life of only a few days. The big plantations could not deliver in time to dominate the markets so the food science laboratories experimented to find ways to extend the ripening time. By taking the gene of another organism that did not ripen so quickly, they inserted it into the tomato and, bingo! After much trials and errors, it worked. The new tomato had a very long shelf life, the big food growers swamped the market with low cost tomatoes, the small farmers went out of business and then with the competition eliminated, the plantation corporations increased the price of their tomatoes and made a fortune. They still do.

The scientific research laboratories of the multinational food corporations launched frenzied research and development programs to find ways to genetically modify every possible plant that could be used in food and they own the patent for that food. So tomatoes and corn and many more crops that now dominate the food chain are owned and controlled by these corporations. The seeds that produced them are terminal. That is, they can’t be planted to grow more crops. The farmer has to buy the seed every year from the corporation that holds the patent.

They own and supply the specific fertilizer that makes the seed grow and upon which it is dependent. In this way, the corporations control the food supply through their GMO seed and food products. They will own us, too, one day, and nations will become dependent and subservient to them. If they don't supply the seed, people will starve, riot and topple government.

That is greater power than that which grows from the barrel of a gun!

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filipino focus • biodiversity loss

The hottest of the hot spots

“There is sufficiency for man’s need, but not for man’s greed,” said Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi.

He could have been talking of the tremendous loss of biodiversity that the world is going through, and that endangers wild species, food security and the own survival of humans on earth.

The Philippines is on the frontline. Warns a specialist: “The country is one of the most threatened in the world. The rate of extinction of species is 1,000 times the natural rate because of manmade activities. We are the hottest of the hot spots.” by

“

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Henrylito D. Tacio | journalist

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he worst thing that can happen – will happen – is not energy depletion, economic collapse, limited nuclear war, or conquest by a totalitarian government,” pointed out American biologist in an article he wrote for Harvard Magazine. “As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired within a few generations.

The one process that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.”

Biodiversity – coined from biological diversity – is most often thought of as the variety of organisms on earth.

Yet, it also includes two other factors: ecological diversity (the variety of ecosystems and ecological communities) and genetic diversity (the range of genetic differences found within and between species). “All three aspects are crucial for the success and development of life on earth,” explains People and the Planet, a group raising environmental concerns based in London. “Since environmental conditions at every level are constantly changing, only diversity can ensure that some individuals and species will be able to adapt to the changes.”

Species declines and extinctions have always been a natural part of that process, but there is something disturbingly different about the current extinction patterns. “Like the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, humanity now finds itself in the midst of a mass extinction: a global evolutionary convulsion with few parallels in the entire history of life,”

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wrote John Tuxill and Chris Bright, authors of "Losing Strand in the Web of Life." “But unlike the dinosaurs, we are not simply the contemporaries of a mass extinction – we are the reason of it.”

Discoveries and losses

The Philippines is the world’s second largest archipelago country after Indonesia. It comprises more than 7,100 islands covering 297,179 square kilome-

ters in the westernmost of the Pacific Ocean. The country has 400, out of 500, coral species known in the world.

“Every time we go into the water, someone discovers something that’s never been seen before,” said Dr. Terrence Gosliner, dean of science and research collections at the California Academy of Sciences. He’s not alone; many scientists think that many new species remain to be discovered in the country.

Just recently, Secretary Ramon Paje of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) reported that 270 wildlife species have been discovered in the country within the last 25 years. “These endemic species are our living jewels. They are irreplaceable and unique components of our awesome environmental heritage,” he pointed out. The Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau (PAWB), a line agency of DENR, has included in its list of new discoveries 29 new species of rodents found across the country; three species of bats from Mindoro and Abra; four bird species from Cagayan, Cebu and Camiguin; and 44 reptile and 29 amphibian species from Luzon, NegrosPanay, Greater Mindanao and Sulu.

More than 160 plant species have also been discovered, including varieties of the world’s largest flower, Rafflesia.

The Philippines ranks fifth in the world in terms of number of plant species and hosts about 5% of the world’s flora.

The Convention for International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES), of which the Philippines is a signatory, has listed several wildlife species in the country that are rare, threatened, or endangered. Among these are the Philippine eagle (the country’s bird icon), tamaraw, Calamian deer, Palawan bearcat, Mindanao gymure, Philippine tarsier, Panay f lying fox, Cebu black shama, Philippine cockatoo, bungang ipot, tagbak, and Sander’s glocacia.

“A few decades ago, the wildlife of the Philippines was notable for its abundance; now, it is notable for its variety; if present trend of destruction continues, Philippine wildlife will be notable for its absence,” deplored Dr. Lee Talbot, a well-known ecologist and geographer.

Destroying the natural habitat

“The Philippines is one of the most threatened in the world. The rate of extinction of species is 1,000 times the natural rate because of manmade activities,” DENR Undersecretary Demetrio Ignacio said. “It is a crisis. We are the hottest of the hot spots.”

The threats to the country’s once lush and diverse wildlife are many. But the primary culprit is the loss of its natural habitat, particularly the tropical rainforests.

In the Philippines, forests are disappearing fast.

Dr. Angel C. Alcala, former DENR secretary and current Director of the Silliman University's Angelo King Center for Research and Management, has estimated that the number of endangered Philippine bird species alone number around 56. Dr. Seymour Sohmer from the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, has concluded in a study that the country has already lost 40% of its endemic flora.

The threats to the country’s once lush and diverse wildlife are many.

But the primary culprit is the loss of its natural habitat, particularly the tropical rainforests. “In the Philippines, forests are disappearing fast,” reports Sanda Volpp in an article which appeared in Handbook Philippines. “An alarming comparison reveals that while 95% of the Philippines was covered by forests a hundred years ago, in 1982, it was down to about 40% and, in 2006, not even 20% is left. Of the remaining forest lands, only 800,000 hectares are still primary forests” Volpp noted.

Studies show that a pair of Philippine eagle needs at least 7,000 to 13,000 hectares of forests as a nesting territory. “Without the forest, the species cannot survive over the long term,” said Dennis Salvador, the executive director of the Philippine Eagle Foundation, Inc. “Without the forest, not only the Philippine eagle will go extinct, but so will the dreams and aspirations of millions of marginal income families who rely on the forest to survive.”

“Protection of biodiversity should be one of the top priorities of any meaningful strategy to safeguard the world’s biological heritage,” suggests John C. Ryan, author of "Life Support: Conserving Biological Diversity."

As Dr. James Kirchner, an American professor of earth and planetary science at University of California, puts it: “The planet would be biologically

depleted for millions of years, with consequences extending not only beyond the lives of our children’s children, but beyond the likely lifespan of the entire human species.”

Rebuilding the ecosystems

But there is still a glimmer of hope.

“Humans, after all, are not dinosaurs,” Tuxill and Bright declare. “We can change. Even in the midst of the mass extinction, we still largely control our destiny, but only if we act now. The fate of untold numbers of species depends on it. And so does the fate of our children, in ways we can barely begin to conceive.”

In the Philippines, several environmental laws that protect these natural heritages have been passed. Unfortunately, these laws are not reinforced due to internal conf licts over policy direction and jurisdiction as well as a general lack of technical knowledge and political will, surmised Atty. Jose A. Canivel, executive director of the Philippine Tropical Forest Conservation Foundation. “Lawmakers, decision makers, policy makers have shown little interest in biodiversity conservation because there is little knowledge and, with little knowledge, there is very little value attached,” Canivel said.

“Of all the global problems that confront us, (loss of biodiversity) is the one that is moving the most rapidly and the one that will have the most serious consequences,” deplored Dr. Peter Raven, director of Missouri Botanical Gardens in the United States. Saving biodiversity, however, is very expensive: an estimated $300 billion a year for the next eight years. But “saving a species is more than a simple matter of putting it in a cage or pot,” reminds Paje. “It requires us to protect or rebuild its habitat, as well as the balance it keeps in relation to other species lower and higher in the food chain or web of life.”

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wm special • GMO's AGRIBUSINESS

Words can't feed the hungry Dwindling agro-biodiversity at all levels is a result of decades of agribusiness, and that’s why we are living in a great age of extinction. GMO crops only further this model. First, because of their engineered resistance to herbicides, the net result is that herbicide use has increased.

Due to the emergence of resistant pests, more applications of pesticides and herbicides are necessary to prevent loss of profit in these massive monocultures. The mantra that GMO foods will save the world from famine are just words. And can’t fill bellies, just some pockets. by

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Leonard Pollara | Organic Sage Consulting

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W

e have heard lately, over and over again, how GMO foods will save the world from famine. A great yet mendacious sales pitch. To anyone who is paying attention, it is obvious that poverty is the principal cause of hunger. The first reality of starvation in the world today has to do with politics not farming. According to worldhunger.org, world agriculture produces 17% more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago

in spite of a 70% population increase, enough for a 2,720 kilocalories per person per day diet. This is certainly not a result of adopting GMO agriculture.

Malnutrition, as measured by stunted growth, affects 32.5% of children in developing countries. Geographically, more than 70% of malnourished children live in Asia, 26% in Africa and 4% in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Consider what agriculture looked like just three generations ago. There

were many small farms that produced a wider diversity of crops. War and the need to provide armies in the field at great distances over long periods drove the advancement of processing technologies. Processors needed high volumes of ingredients to produce these rations. To feed that effort, it became clear that it was more efficient to do business with fewer producers offering more material. Policy continued to drive that concentration. The same phenomena of supply concentration created an opportunity for private businesses to develop mass-produced food capacity and exploit the market potential in wealthy countries. Bigger is better was the mantra. Economy of scale was the rationale. Following on the heels of agricultural concentration was the concentration of wealth. The subsequent drive to consolidate investments by owning land, along with vertical business integration in agriculture is where we are today.

Farming industrialization

The chemical plants that had been engaged in producing munitions during war, with little retooling, began producing chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Most farmers were out of their depth of understanding when using these chemical tools and so began to rely entirely upon the product manufacturers’ advice. As is to be expected, that advice advocates for a chemicalbased agriculture.

Advanced food processing technology and food production technologies side along with the escalating dependence of agriculture on chemical strategies to bring a crop to harvest, support the farming industry in ignoring the lessons in sustainability learned by observing natural systems. Today, much of farming only vaguely resembles any naturally occurring environment. This is evident in the absolutely indefensible magnitude of monoculture farming worldwide. Not only does monoculture farming create an absence of diversity, it relies upon profound amounts

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of chemical inputs to produce a crop.

Devoid of natural populations of plant and animal biota, soil that is managed as an anchor media, instead of the foundation of plant nutrition, is one result. Dwindling biodiversity at all levels is another. We are living in a great age of extinction.

GMO crops only further this model.

First, because of their engineered resistance to herbicides, the net result is that herbicide use has increased. Due to the emergence of resistant pests, more applications of pesticides and herbicides are necessary to prevent loss of profit in these massive monocultures. Also, because of transgenic technology, diverse crop species, previously distinct with little chance for interspecies vulnerability to pest and pathogen pressures, now share common genetic material that may render them more broadly susceptible to epidemic catastrophe (ex. Bt corn, Bt cotton, Bt soybeans, Bt sugar beets, Bt potatoes). Very little of how agriculture has been developing over the past 75 years is successful in the context of a sustainable agricultural reality.

Nature is not a factory

Simply put, living systems, managed as if they were mechanical production systems, will crash once the existing resilience in the living system is exhausted.

Managing a natural system, as if it were a manufacturing process, always results in collapse of the natural system.

Some of the more dramatic examples of this are the Irish potato famine, the U.S. dust bowl and the current rise of colony collapse disorder (CCD) of European honeybees.

Agricultural chemical manufacturers perceive events like these as opportunities. To wit, Monsanto bought the leading bee research company in April of 2012 after its GMO corn pollen and neonicotinoid products were implicated in CCD. Catastrophe drives the need within conventional production agriculture for substantial and generally escalating inputs. These selfstyled “crop protection companies”

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 NOT A FACTORY. Mechanical massive production can lead to exhausting the living system.

Living systems, managed as if they were mechanical production systems, will crash once the existing resilience in the living system is exhausted. Managing a natural system, as if it were a manufacturing process, always results in collapse of the natural system. provide more chemical tools from outside the farm system in the form of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, etc., to avoid widespread crop failure.

The farm input costs go up and the chemical company profits go up. With modern ‘conventional’ agriculture, reliance upon chemical strategies and seeds adapted to these strategies is necessary. The same situation exists more and more in animal agriculture.

To survive in conventional agriculture, one needs to purchase the ability to farm in the form of these materials that fit into mechanized high volume agricultural systems.

Diversity is the best defense

Compare that with natural systems.

Diversity is known to be the first defense against disease and infestation in natural systems. Conventional agriculture is clearly headed in the opposite direction. And so it appears that the answer to the obvious “WHY?” lies in food politics, power and wealth. Consider the concept that there are very few ways to create new wealth on earth.

New wealth is that value that did not previously exist in any form available to

man. Previously existing wealth that is passed around is simply value added or value lost during exchange of existing wealth. New wealth did not exist in any form under man’s control and is either discovered as in mining and fishing, or harnessed as in renewable energy. Agriculture is the source of new wealth that had been accessible to all mankind. Previously living in predominantly agrarian societies, it was accessible and as populations concentrate in urban areas in developed and developing countries, people become removed from that opportunity. Managing natural systems that capture solar and biological energy and convert them to usable forms, such as food and fiber, creates new wealth.

Today, one result of conventional agriculture is the concentration of wealth that is driven by chemical reliance.

GMO gene patenting and control of the seed supply takes this even further by exercising ownership rights. This removes the opportunity from those farming for deriving new wealth from agriculture and places it in the hands of the patent holders. Farmers are only licensed for the use of the seed and the right to sell the crop. They must extract

wm special • GMO's AGRIBUSINESS what wealth they can from their labor.

That level of operations essentially relegates farmers to nothing more than sharecroppers. Patent law says that this is just. Humility and honest ethos says that it is absolutely disingenuous.

Farmers, since the dawn of agriculture, have saved and replanted their own seed. All humanity, engaged in agriculture over millennia, is responsible for the existence and character of the seeds available today. The extensive trust of life contained in each seed belongs to mankind. Manipulation by clunky technology, resulting in insinuating genes into a cell without understanding or knowing what will happen in the context of evolutionary time, is both wildly careless of survival and callously arrogant. Add to that the political reality of gene patenting in transgenic seed and a new suite of assets are available to drive further concentration of wealth, all for the sake of profit.

Corporate interests AND academia

During the 30 something years of my farming career, I shifted from modest use of chemical fertilizers, in the 1970’s, to an entirely organic system.

After years of my organic system being in place, I experienced stable and excellent productivity across my farming operation. This is consistent with the results experienced by others employing similar methodology. I was seeking optimum not maximum. My net

income was higher per acre than the commercial producers around me for two predominant reasons. One was that I farmed at a human scale, using heavy equipment for field preparation only and, subsequently, using small equipment and manual labor for crop protection. Second was that the cost of purchased inputs was negligible and nonexistent in most years. Seed was my single greatest expense after labor. Neither aspect of my farming operation put money into the pocket of big-business seed-manufacturers nor chemical companies. A fully integrated organic and bio-intensive agriculture that is very productive and profitable for the grower is of no interest to any company looking to sell inputs.

There is an absolute dearth of institutional research regarding this because no private entity, with deep enough pockets to support research, is willing to spend money seeking knowledge for the sake of humanity. There is no immediate profit in that. Unfortunately, in the U.S., the public funds that had supported empirical research via the agricultural experiment stations and agricultural extension service – the foundation upon which modern agricultural research stands – has been reduced to insignificance. Now, publicprivate partnerships, that have corporate interests in bed with academia, result in a focus away from public interest and directly at corporate gain.

 MIRACLE OF LIFE. The sprouting of a seed, bursting forth life, is a miracle for all to see.

Hunger is a byproduct of politics

Looking at comparative perceptions of farming by non-farmers, it becomes obvious that, in spite of the fact that everyone on this planet needs food to survive, farmers are not universally respected as providers of sustenance. As major world cultures move further and further away from fresh-food-ingredient, made-from-scratch cuisine, the processing industry captures more and more of every food dollar. Those food dollars add up. The food market worldwide is expected to reach U.S. $5.3 trillion/yr. by the end of 2014.

GMO crops on the market do not further the productive capacity of any crop. The statement that golden rice would solve world hunger is ludicrous.

The proposal that any agricultural activity that relies upon a concentrated vertically-integrated food supply to end world hunger flies in the face of history and reality. Hunger, in our modern world, is entirely a function of politics.

Barring the occasional natural disaster, in which case famine needs last only until food aid can arrive, hunger is the result of societal indifference. This is a profound issue and, by no means, to be construed as an easy thing to resolve. However, there is already enough food on the planet to feed the world. It is just not in individual hands. The best solution to remedy this is to get it into individual hands. The single greatest potential to resolve this is by empowering more people to participate directly in the production of their food. That requires land first, even if only a little, not GMO seeds. That would require support in the form of policy to enable such a movement. That would require individuals all around the world to take back into their own hands and minds the role of being primary providers. That would demand that we all acknowledge the miracle of life that is contained in a seed, an embryo. That acknowledgement would set the foundation of value that all men should have access to that which is the legacy of mankind as represented in the seed.

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wm special • GMO's AGRIBUSINESS

Letting the fox guard the hen house

I’m not sure whose lives the big corporations which produce GMO seeds, together with the doubtful herbicides and pesticides this type of crops requires, are interested in improving. Certainly not the Indian farmers who have lost everything and taken their own lives. Unfortunately, there is too little factual information regarding the effects of GMO products that is available and provided by the technology developers. In farming terms, that is letting the fox guard the hen house. by

Leonard Pollara | Organic Sage Consulting

I

would like to suggest that the first concept to grasp about genetic engineering is that, in and of itself, it is neither good nor bad. It is technology that allows us to insert genes from one genome (the complete set of genes or genetic material present in a cell or organism) into another genome. In other words, it is simply technological ability.

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Second, we need to agree that when referring to ‘genetic engineering’ in this article, we are discussing only the specific and narrow application of the term in regard to gene manipulation, rather than time-honored practices of managed breeding and hybridization.

Third, nature has mechanisms that, under certain rare circumstances, have allowed genes to ‘flow’ from one species

to another species. This is effected by viruses that invade cells of plants or animals and, especially, microorganisms.

It is supposed that, most often, these situations result in death or dysfunction of the host organism. In rare cases, the organism survives and the new genetic information becomes a part of the host's genetic sequence. This, then, is passed on to subsequent generations.

These natural phenomena, in part, led the research into developing ‘genetic engineering’ technologies. However, the natural process is, in many ways, a dramatically different event from that practiced by ‘genetic engineers.’

Fourth, there has been a tremendous volume of rhetoric in public media devoted to smudging common language used to describe life processes as most widely understood. One result is that it has become very easy to divert a conversation away from a discussion of genetic engineering to weeds of semantic debate. This often frustrates and inf lames the emotions of those participating in the discussion and tends to result in anger and disengagement from the discussion.

We will touch on some of the semantic arguments that are being used to obscure the impact of genetic engineering a bit further on.

Starting at the beginning

There has been much discussion of late that tries to recast traditional methods of plant and animal reproductive management as ‘genetic engineering.’

Before the concept of genetics was formalized, herdsmen and farmers alike, through observation, trial and error, learned to select the ideal specimens of plants and animals for use as ‘seed stock’ and ‘breeding stock’. Over time, curiosity regarding this practice led to ‘scientific’ discovery. Through the insight and discipline of early researchers such as Gregor Mendel who, around 1863, discovered that traits are transmitted from parent to child by specific cell components, later called genes , the concept of genetics was introduced.

The pace of scientific discovery escalated along with the technological advances that permitted and supported such discoveries. The list below shows the rate of development increasing as technology and information sharing in the electronic age gained speed.

To name a few: 4 The 1879 discovery by Fleming of chromatin, later called chromosomes.

 MANIPULATION. Genetic engineering, a long discussion which is still far from ending.

Before the concept of genetics was formalized, herdsmen and farmers alike, through observation, trial and error, learned to select the ideal specimens of plants and animals for use as ‘seed stock’ and ‘breeding stock’.

4 In 1906, William Bateson proposed using the term ‘genetics’, “which sufficiently indicates that our labors are devoted to the elucidation of the phenomena of heredity and variation: in other words, to the physiology of descent, with implied bearing on the theoretical problems of the evolutionist and the systematist, and application to the practical problems of breeders, whether of animals or plants.”

4 1915, bacterial viruses were discovered, 4 1920, Evans and Long discovered the human growth hormone.

4 1940, Oswald Avery demonstrated that DNA is the transforming material of genes.

4 1946, the discovery that genetic material from viruses can be combined to form distinct and new viruses – genetic recombination.

4 1950, artificial insemination was developed and successfully completed.

4 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick described the double helix structure of DNA in the publication, Nature, ushering in the modern age of genetics 4 1960, hybrid DNA – RNA molecules were created.

4 1966, the genetic code was cracked.

4 1969, the first synthesized enzyme was created in vitro.

4 1970, The first complete synthesized gene was produced.

4 1973, Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer perfected genetic engineering techniques to cut and paste DNA (using restriction enzymes and ligases) and reproduced the new DNA in bacteria.

4 1978, recombinant human insulin was first produced. North Carolina scientists showed it was possible to introduce specific mutations at specific sites in a DNA molecule.

4 1980, the Supreme Court in Diamond v. Chakrabarty approved the principle of patenting genetically-engineered life forms that allowed the Exon oil company to patent an oil-eating microorganism.

4 1981, the first transgenic animals were produced by transferring genes from other animals into mice.

4 1981,the golden carp was the first fish cloned by Chinese scientists.

4 1983, the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique was conceived.

PCR, which used heat and enzymes to

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make unlimited copies of genes and gene fragments, later became a major tool in biotech research and product development worldwide.

4 1984, the first genetically-engineered vaccine was developed. The entire genome of the HIV virus was cloned and sequenced.

4 1985, genetically-engineered plants resistant to insects; viruses and bacteria were field tested for the first time.

4 1986, the EPA approved the release of the first genetically-engineered cropgene-altered tobacco plants and authorizes field-testing.

4 1987, the first authorized field tests of engineered bacterium ‘Frostban’ were performed in California on potatoes and strawberries.

4 1990, Chy-Max(tm), an artificially-produced form of chymosin, an enzyme for cheese making, was introduced. It was the first product of recombinant DNA technology in the U.S. food supply. * The first successful field trial of genetically-engineered cotton plants was conducted. * The plants had been engineered to withstand use of the herbicide Bromoxynil. * The first transgenic dairy cow - used to produce human milk proteins for infant formula - was created.

4 1993, FDA declared that geneticallyengineered foods were "not inherently dangerous" and did not require special regulation.

4 Subsequently, several hundred patents have been awarded for geneticallyaltered bacteria and plants.

For all intents and purposes, traditional breeding was not generally considered as ‘genetic engineering’ so much as sound agricultural management. Technologies, such as artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, and other biomedical practices, were developed as first-tiered genetic engi-

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neering. These practices persist today and are alike with GMO development in that they require other than naturally occurring physical intervention to effect the desired result.

In 1992, the ‘Flavr Savr’ tomato was the first food crop approved for production by the USDA. In 1994, after years of research, Calgene, a California company, brought the first geneticallyengineered crop to market. The company’s researchers were able to inhibit gene expression that produced protein that causes tomatoes to get mushy.

Calgene developed and patented the technology to do this. Their objective, using this novel technology, was to create a tomato that would retain its f lavor and texture for a longer period of time than possible with the existing traditionally-developed tomato varieties. It may be interesting to note that, at the time, there were over 600 named varieties of tomatoes. It is significant to note that the researchers were tweaking tomato genes, in tomatoes, to extend shelf life. This clearly would have had a positive economic impact in that, with less spoilage, there would be a higher percent of value recovered in selling a harvested crop. Good for the growers and handlers! As well, the improved shelf life of the tomato would have a positive impact on the consumers due to the improved f lavor retention in this tomato. Good for the eaters!

Arguably, a win-win situation. This was considered a great idea, worth the millions of dollars spent on development because most concentrations of population weren’t able to purchase ‘actually’ vine ripe tomatoes from their local farmers. People will pay high prices for good f lavorful tomatoes; a big economic incentive. By creating the 'Flavr Savr,' the thought was that tomatoes could be shipped from distant fields and warmer climates and still arrive in perfect condition for display on a storeshelf. And, also, last longer on your counter before being used in preparing that amazing meal you are planning .

Three corporations control half of the market

Calgene originally was very intent on developing a strong positive consumer response to the 'Flavr Savr' tomato because of the newness of the idea of the genetic engineering technology. They had very prominent package and fruit labeling and all of the marketing of this tomato was direct to the consumer. The 'Flavr Savr' development team was, in fact, operating as the grower for this project. In a very clear commitment to transparency and understanding the possible market resistance of consumers to GMO foods, Calgene even sought licensing from the FDA/USDA for the 'Flavr Savr' tomato.

The Monsanto Company, that had begun investing heavily in purchasing seed companies, bought shares in Calgene in mid-1995 to gain access to the

wm special • GMO's AGRIBUSINESS Three corporations now control more than 50% of the world’s seed supply: Bayer, Syngenta, and Monsanto.

Monsanto, while not known to the seed industry before the mid-1980's, is now the world‘s largest seed company.

Its rise, accompanying the patenting of technologies, has facilitated the licensing to other seed companies and made producers dependent on the technology. The acquisition of biotech and traditional seed companies has expanded the company’s reach from cash crops into vegetable crops with holdings of over 26% of the global market. In 2010, some estimated 80% of the land planted with major field crops in the U.S. contained transgenic traits owned or licensed by Monsanto. Genetically modified crops are grown on 420 million acres by 17.3 million farmers around the world. More than 90% of them are small farmers in developing countries, according to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, an organization that promotes the use of biotechnology. Vertical integration with firms like Cargill and Sysco has allowed essential control of corn and soybean distribution from ‘trait to plate.’ patented gene manipulation technology and, subsequently, bought the rest of the stock in 1997. The Calgene scientists were self-described ‘gene jockeys, not farmers.’ They suffered some very embarrassing and costly losses as a result of their ignorance of commercial farming and marketing practices. Production of the 'Flavr Savr' was, subsequently, suspended and, ultimately, removed from the marketplace. Thus, ended the story of the 'Flavr Savr' tomato.

Also ended was any apparent willingness for full disclosure regarding GMO traits in food made available to the end-consumer. This is somewhat surprising because, at the time, there wasn’t widespread resistance to the idea of a genetically-engineered food being put in the marketplace.

It is important to understand that GMO products in the market, since

the 'Flavr Savr' tomato was shelved, have different target customers from end-consumers. It is first necessary to market GMO products to the farmers in the form of seeds. If the farmers did not adopt the use of GMO seed, then there would be no GMO product to market as finished food or food ingredients.

Reading the bold-print promotional material that GMO seed manufacturers have used to sell their seeds to growers, one would think that GMO seed is far superior to other non-GMO seed.

However, this is simply not true. The early sales pitches have the ardor of the snake oil salesman especially since the touted gains have not materialized.

Also, those strident claims have disappeared from marketing as control of the seed supply tightened. What has happened, though, is that control of the seed supply has become concentrated.

The “bonus” of herbicides and pesticides

The traits that have been engineered into the seed are predominately those that permit or encourage use of other products (chemical herbicides, pesticides) that are often produced by the same company selling the seed. There was, at first, a very loud and promising assertion from the seed companies that, by using the GM seed varieties, farmers could save money. This would be due to a reduced need for herbicides in the case of Bt-engineered genes and that they could more effectively use herbicide in a crop in the case of Glyphosate-tolerant crops. Bt presence and Glyphosate tolerance are the two predominant GE traits engineered into plants based upon acreage planted.

Both of these scenarios (plant toxicity

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wm special • GMO's AGRIBUSINESS to pests and tolerance to herbicides), according to the sales pitch, would result in more of the crop being brought in at harvest. That was a very powerful inducement for producers to purchase the new seed. As one might expect, early adopters did see increases due to a higher harvest percentage and/or less competition from weeds. Originally, prices for this seed, while a bit higher than conventional seed costs, were comparatively reasonably priced. This cost was considered a small increase to gain access to more crop harvested as a result of using the GMO crop seed.

And so the marvel of this new technology was marketed to growers with confident and forceful advertising.

The practical reality, as it has become evident over time, is that, precisely like every other example of overreliance on a chemical strategy to manage crop pests, these GMO tools are now failing. Nature in the inexorable fashion of life on our planet, has responded to GMO tactics in the same way nature has responded to conventional chemical products. The targeted pests are developing resistance, and/ or new pests are emerging into the vacuum created by the absence of the targeted pest organism. This results in

more chemical applications and new efforts to reintroduce chemicals that had been abandoned as too dangerous such as 24D. The appearance of “super pests”

At this point, let us pause for a moment and consider the observed cycle of rescue chemical strategy in “conventional’ agricultural production. The simple and dirty truth here is that, while chemical means and tactics have dramatic and very often immediate results, these results are short-lived in the context of evolutionary time. There is an entirely predictable cycle.

A ‘pest’ is targeted by a chemical that, when introduced into the environment, may have or generally has unintended consequences on the surrounding biosphere. (Note: In military terms, that is collateral damage. This term refers to an acceptable level of damage or loss when balanced against the net result of deploying the tactic.)

The chemical is applied and, in general, the pest is killed to below the economic threshold impacting the crop. Other non-targetted pests often are killed thus increasing the biological vacuum that results from eliminating species from the biome.

Overreliance upon chemical use, is the standard today.

This cycle is fully understood and relied upon by the pesticide producers to stay in business. It has long been known that all pests develop resistance to a chemical over time.

 PESTS. Pesticides in monoculture agriculture, are massively used to control the pests.

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Always, the application is not universal and some ‘treated’ pests survive.

Those treated ‘pests’ that do survive may do so because of a wide range of variables, however, the net result is that some survive. Of those that survive, some have a natural resistance to the chemical used. These resistant populations cross breed and develop a population that is largely resistant. The largely resistant population grows during this recovery period after the initial die-offs and becomes a pest population with economic impact on the cultivated crop.

In cases where resistance does not develop, the removal of the pest from the biosphere causes a species vacuum.

During the recovery period, during which target pests would develop resistance, other opportunistic species that are less affected or not affected by the chemical usage often move into the affected area. The long-term response of nature in the form of evolution is that resistant and opportunistic individuals (plant, insect, microbe etc.) develop in this void resulting in the emergence of a population that has an economic impact on the cultivated crop.

This imbalanced approach to agriculture, in part defined as overreliance upon chemical use, is the standard today. This cycle is fully understood and relied upon by the pesticide producers to stay in business. It has long been known that all pests develop resistance to a chemical over time if they aren’t eradicated outright. That demands that new chemical strategies must be developed to take the place of the preceding ones as they lose efficacy.

This fits ideally in an agricultural system where there is a reliance on large acreages of the same crop. Modern agriculture has been driven to take advantage of mechanical production efficiencies, labor being the most expensive business cost. The escalation of the practice of monoculture agriculture is clearly the result. Monoculture has played a key role in the chemical cycle.

Some environmental scientists call this cycle the pesticide treadmill: as farmers

shutterstock.com

 SOURCE OF LIFE. Seeds are the link between the past and the future of evolution.

Only now this is beginning to emerge as a discussion issue among farmers. Seeing other producers who saved seed being prosecuted by Monsanto for patent infringement has been a wake-up call for the farming population. and pesticide producers work harder to control pests, they create pests that are harder to control. The pesticide treadmill starts with the development of a new and powerful pesticide and hasn’t stopped yet.

Throwing away centuries of knowledge

With the Supreme Court’s decision to patent seeds comes a remarkable concentration of seed supply as mentioned above. This, in complete disregard to eons of tradition regarding seed saving. ‘The seed, the source of life, the embodiment of our biological and cultural diversity, the link between the past and the future of evolution, the common property of past, present and future generations of farming communities that have been seed breeders, is today being stolen from the farmers and being sold back to us as “propriety” seed, owned by corporations like Monsanto’ (Vandana Shiva).

Reading the fine print on a seed purchase contract, it is clearly stated that the grower is taking all of the risks that may result from using this seed.

As well, the grower may not keep and replant any kept seed. The GMO seed can only be planted to harvest a crop

for consumption. So, in buying this seed, every farmer purchasing the seed surrenders the privilege to plant a successive crop using their own saved seed. Effectively, giving up what has been considered a time-honored right millennium old, and stooping to agree to be sharecroppers for the seed corporations. Only now this is beginning to emerge as a discussion issue among farmers. Seeing other producers who saved seed being prosecuted by Monsanto for patent infringement has been a wake-up call for the farming population.

Due to the absolute lack of independent research and vehement resistance on the part of the biotech firms to external research, a large part of the controversy surrounding GMO material has simply to do with trust. Unfortunately, the behavior of the owners of the technology has not engendered trust. Recalling that Calgene initially made every effort to be transparent, it is remarkable that Monsanto and other GM technology patent holders are vigorously working to keep the results of research cloaked in near secrecy. Not only have they guarded their patents, they have rigorously attacked all negative press. Scientists and practitioners,

completing independent research that published negative results, have been vilified and felt the brunt of aggressive counter attacks. Political pressure has also been applied in cases of negative results being reported to the effect that researchers have lost their positions.

The shroud of secrecy, coupled with attacks on individuals, continues to raise more and more questions regarding the validity of the assertions promulgated

by Monsanto regarding the safety of GMOs. As well, the efforts to orchestrate legislation in the U.S. to codify GMO protective language that would result in even less scrutiny of GMO development and use are highly provocative and disturbing. This, coupled with escalating pressure on other countries to accept the use of GMO material, really raises questions about the objectives of these large seed companies.

Improving or condemning lives?

This quote is taken from Monsanto’s website: “Producing more. Conserving more. Improving lives. That’s sustainable agriculture. And that’s what Monsanto is all about.”

There are a number of cognitive dissonances with Monsanto’s behavior and their statement. If they wanted to engineer seed to be more productive, that should be the focus of their research.

They have engineered tolerance to their herbicide, Roundup®. They have engineered Bt into plants thus rendering each cell toxic to certain Lepidoptera caterpillars. If they were interested in conserving more, one might think that that might involve reducing chemical inputs when it is clear that they are up to increasing them for profitability. I’m not sure whose lives they are interested in improving. Certainly not the Indian farmers who have lost everything and taken their own lives.

Unfortunately, there is too little factual information regarding the effects of GMO products that is available, and provided by the technology developers.

In farming terms, that all adds up to letting the fox guard the hen house.

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world report • Wildlife

Africa is squandering its living jewels

Wildlife is the postcard of Africa, as sea, sun and beach is the trademark and the great source of revenue of the Pacific Islands, but the continent is squandering its natural source of sustainable and eco-friendly tourism. Poachers, guerrilla fighters, extractive industries and criminal rackets are among those that are depleting its natural parks and killing their most iconic species.

Unfortunately, South Africa, the richest African country, is not spared. by

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“

G

od made every kind of wild animal, every kind of tame animal, and every kind of thing that crawls on the ground. God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1: 25). Indeed, for Him, they were precious. Before the Deluge, He gave Noah precise instruction to save all of them, together with his own family, leaving behind the humans who had displeased Him so much. In the mythological language of creation and recreation, this shows that wild beasts have their own role to play – if they were merely ornamental and disposable, the domesticated ones would be enough to keep the new humanity alive. But God’s creation is not about utility. It’s a masterpiece of natural balance, and a permanent source of wonder and awe, and also a way to discover, in its infinite diversity and beauty, His bounty and the wonders with which He filled our planet – His secret signature.

Right now, I would be quite able to build a new ark, and to exclude all the soulless beings that are decimating our wild friends, just for the sake of making more money. Before, however, I would try to join the culprits and explain to them that money is just paper, and it doesn’t feed our need of beauty and

mystery nor the dreams of our children.

I doubt that they would understand, but at least I would have tried. Full disclosure: I’m emotionally involved in the question, and quite grumpy about the present state of things. After all, we are facing the biggest extinction of species since dinosaurs disappeared from the face of the earth. It’s a deluge in reverse mode, and on such a big scale that we are only able to concentrate on the most emblematic ones.

The last time I felt like that was in 2012, when King Juan Carlos of Spain was caught red-handed, in the company of a female friend, on a secret trip to Botswana to kill an elephant, which is an icon of the wonders of wildlife and one which is on the fast track to extinction.

I don’t know if it was to show, in his old age, his machismo or to kill, together with the poor beasts, his boredom. The news caused a stir in his own country, then, as now, at the peak of a huge and hurtful recession. Those escapades, which targeted endangered species, were quite common (in Spain there are large hunting reserves where you can shoot the legal ones), even though the king, ironically, was also honorary president of the Spanish chapter of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). At once, a

God’s creation is not about utility. It’s a masterpiece of natural balance, and a permanent source of wonder and awe, and also a way to discover, in its infinite diversity and beauty, His bounty and the wonders with which He filled our planet – His secret signature.

Lusa

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petition appeared on the internet asking for his dismissal (disclosure: I signed it at once), and a few months later the conservation groups’ chapter “voted overwhelmingly to abolish the post.”

The crime threat

Unfortunately, punishment doesn’t usually follow “crime” in such a swift way. Mainly because, according to WWF, the racket behind the illegal traffic of wild species is the same that operates in the shadows, and deals with everything highly lucrative. The organization warns: “The world is dealing with an unprecedented spike in illegal wildlife trade, threatening to overturn decades of conservation gains. Ivory estimated to weigh more than 23 metric tons – a figure that represents 2,500 elephants – was confiscated in the 13 largest seizures of illegal ivory in 2011.

Poaching threatens the last of our wild tigers that number as few as 3,200.

Wildlife crime is a big business. Run by dangerous international networks, wildlife and animal parts are trafficked much like illegal drugs and arms (and also human beings). By its very nature, it is almost impossible to obtain reliable figures for the value of illegal wildlife trade. Experts at TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, estimate that it runs into hundreds of millions of dollars.

Some examples of illegal wildlife trade are well known, such as poaching of elephants for ivory, tigers for their skins and bones, and rhinos for their horns. However, countless other species are similarly overexploited, from marine turtles to timber trees. Not all wildlife trade is illegal. Wild plants and animals from tens of thousands of species are caught or harvested from the wild and then sold legitimately as food, pets, ornamental plants, leather, tourist ornaments and medicine. Wildlife trade escalates into a crisis when an increasing proportion is illegal and unsustainable – directly threatening the survival of many species in the wild. Stamping out wildlife crime is a priority for WWF

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Lusa

 HEINOUS CRIME. Illegal trade is directly threatening the survival of many wildlife species.

Wildlife crime is a big business. Run by dangerous international networks, wildlife and animal parts are trafficked much like illegal drugs and arms. By its very nature, it is almost impossible to obtain reliable figures for the value of illegal wildlife trade. because it’s the largest direct threat to the future of many of the world’s most threatened species. It is second only to habitat destruction in overall threats against species survival.”

Horns at gold prices

It’s almost hard to believe, but the rhino horn is considered a sort of fix-it-all potion for all kinds of “diseases,” as is described in a 16th. century Chinese handbook: “As an Antidote to Poisons; to cure devil possession and keep away all evil spirits and miasmas, for gelsemium [jasmine] and snake poisoning; to remove hallucinations and bewitching nightmares; continuous administration lightens the body and makes one very robust; for typhoid, headache, and feverish colds; for carbuncles and boils full of pus; for intermittent fevers with delirium; to expel fear and anxiety, to calm the liver and clear the vision. It is a sedative to the viscera, a tonic, antipyretic. It dissolves phlegm. It is an antidote to the evil miasma of hill streams; for infantile convulsions and dysentery.

Ashed and taken with water it treats violent vomiting, food poisoning, and overdosage of poisonous drugs; for arthritis, melancholia, loss of the voice.

Ground up into a paste with water, it is

given for hematemesis [throat haemorrhage], epistaxis [nosebleeds], rectal bleeding, heavy smallpox, etc.”

Once, Hong Kong was the destiny of this illegal trade, but now it has found new competitors: Taiwan and Korea.

As the author Richard Ellis wrote: “Taiwanese self-made millionaires are notorious for their conspicuous consumption of rare and exotic wildlife, and the Chinese traditional adage that animals exist primarily for exploitation is nowhere more pronounced than in Taiwan. Most of the rhino horn for sale there comes from South Africa. The demand for Asian horn, in particular, is increasing and wealthy Taiwanese, aware that prices will rise even higher as rhinoceros numbers decline, are buying it as an investment. In those regions where rhino horn products are dispensed – legally or illegally – the most popular medicines are used for tranquilisers, for relieving dizziness, building energy, nourishing the blood, curing laryngitis, or simply, as the old snake-oil salesmen would have it, “curing whatever ails you” (…) The Taiwanese make up much of the market for horn imported to Asia from South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe – wherever black rhinos can

world report • Wildlife still be found. Like the Taiwanese, many Koreans are devoted practitioners of traditional medicinal arts, and are prepared to import substantial amounts of substances not naturally found in their country. Korean traditional medicine is based on the Chinese version, which is said to have come to Korea during the sixth century.” Meanwhile some centuries have passed.

The consequent carnage is staggering: rhino poaching in South Africa increased by 5,000% between 2007 and 2012, according to the WWF. Whoever sees the carcasses of the slaughtered noble beasts rotting in the sun just because a small part of its body has “magic” properties, feels, I’m certain, a mixture of disgust, nausea and disbelief. The same applies to the noble elephants, robbed of their tusks to make dubious artifacts. The oh so beautiful tigers, also have a decorative value – the nouveaux riches like to have a skin, with the mouth wide open, in the living room, in front of the fireplace.

Tiger’s pharmacy

Unfortunately, tigers are also used as medicine: “For more than 1,000 years the use of tiger parts has been includ-

ed in the traditional Chinese medicine regimen. Because of the tiger’s strength and mythical power, the Chinese culture believes that the tiger has medicinal qualities, which helps treat chronic ailments, cure disease and replenish the body’s essential energy.

Chinese texts state that the active ingredients in tiger bone; calcium and protein, which help promote healing, have anti-inf lammatory properties.”

In fact, the same can be said about a common Aspirin.

Unlike the rhino, almost all the tiger parts have “curative” uses. Some examples: claws – used as a sedative for insomnia; teeth – used to treat fever; fat – used to treat leprosy and rheumatism; nose leather – used to treat superficial wounds such as bites; bones – used as an anti-inf lammatory drug to treat rheumatism and arthritis, general weakness, headaches, stiffness or paralysis in lower back and legs and dysentery; eyeballs – used to treat epilepsy and malaria; tail – used to treat skin diseases; bile – used to treat convulsions in children associated with meningitis; whiskers – used to treat toothache; brain – used to treat laziness and pimples; penis – used in love potions such

The trafficking mafias have at their disposal an almost infinite army of poachers, whose extreme poverty leads them to just see in wildlife a valuable barter for trade. On the other hand, there are people with lots of money to spend and no scruples.

Lusa

 RHINO POACHING. Some rhinos still survive the ordeal but remain marked for ever.

as tiger soup, as an aphrodisiac; dung or feces – used to treat boils, haemorrhoids and cure alcoholism.

The trafficking mafias have at their disposal an almost infinite army of poachers, whose extreme poverty leads them to just see in wildlife a valuable barter for trade. On the other hand, there are people with lots of money to spend and no scruples. In the equation, the simple rules of the free market – offer/demand – command the game: “Rhino horn, elephant ivory and tiger products continue to command high prices among consumers, especially in Asia. In Vietnam, the recent myth that rhino horn can cure cancer has led to massive poaching in South Africa and pushed the price of rhino horn to rival gold.”

Oil in the park

Not even national parks, who are supposed to offer protection to the beasts, are safe. Along with extreme poverty, there are also wars, armed bandits, corruption, the pressure of corporate interests and the lack of a long-term view, which would easily detect in ecotourism a constant and reliable source of revenue. Recently, in the Congo, the struggle for gold put an abrupt and bloody end to an NGO project to save the okapis in the Ituri rainforest nature reserve. Right now, WWF is trying to block oil exploration in Africa’s oldest national park, Virunga, where a remaining community of 200 gorillas live. The Swiss-based conservation group filed its complaint with Britain’s Department for Business Innovation and Skills in a bid to stop an oil and gas exploration and production company called SOCO International from exploring in the park, a World Heritage site listed by UNESCO as being “in danger.”

The WWF says SOCO’s plan violates the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's guidelines on sustainable development; the Department is the arm of the British government responsible for overseeing compliance with these guidelines. Last

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world report • Wildlife

Lusa

 BIG BUSINESS. Ivory has been in high demand across the globe and the efforts to put a stop to the illegal trade is still wanting in results.

year, the Congo government authorized SOCO, which is based in London, to explore the region, saying that economic interests take precedence over environmental considerations. Plans to develop the area around Lake Victoria, one of the most sensitive ecological areas on the continent, are already on the table.

Because of these gorillas, whose population has been constantly shrinking (in the whole region, the estimates point to a remnant population of 700), several environmentalists and park guards have been violently killed. Sometimes, just because the poachers wanted to sever the paws of these magnificent animals – in their societal behavior so close to humans – to sell them as ashtrays. The gorillas, even if they are not our closest relatives in the evolution process, are so human-like that this desecration of life brings to mind the unthinkable act of using the remains of one of our remote ancestors to make a lamp.

Like “milk teeth”

At the moment, there is a lot of pressure from a group of African countries

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The legal ivory was sold to the Chinese government at auction for $175 (£112) per kg, and entered the market at $1,700 per kg, but current market prices for ivory in China range from $750 to $7,000 per kg depending on the quality. to remove the ban on all ivory trade and instead to just monitor it, as it happens with the legal one. The pressure group is headed by China, but has the support of some African countries, such as South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe. Their arguments are contested by conservationists, but the profit motive is very powerful. A recent article in The Guardian was quite eloquent: “Ivory is highly desirable in China, Japan and Thailand, used for highly elaborate decorative ornaments down to small keepsakes. The legal ivory was sold to the Chinese government at auction for $175 (£112) per kg, and entered the market at $1,700 per kg, but current market prices for ivory in China range from $750 to $7,000 per kg depending on the quality. African tusks are bigger and attain a higher price than those of Asian elephants. With an increasingly affluent and growing middle

class more than willing to pay for ivory, demand has never been stronger.”

The pressure group argues that legalising all ivory trade would put a stop to the violence, smuggling and crime generated by the illegal trade, but while some of the environmentalists keep asking for a total ban, the majority defend a middle way: “They argue that the most effective way to protect elephants is by improving monitoring systems; intelligence-led enforcement in transit countries; and widespread public education of consumers in countries such as China. “Some Chinese think tusks are like milk-teeth – they fall out and regrow with no harm to the elephant,” says Richard Thomas from the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC. Humiliated kings

In South Africa, another business is, shamefully, booming: lion farms. The

profit motive is once more present.

Patrick Barkham, from The Guardian, visited one just on the outskirts of Johannesburg, and, he had to make an effort to realize that these very cute lion cubs were being fattened to become “canned hunting,” i.e. lions that, once grown, are meant to be summarily killed by rich people willing to pay a lot to hang a trophy on the wall without experiencing any effort or danger. After that, they are able to display to their family and guests their courage, and after a few drinks they conjure up some dangerous adventure in the “savage continent.” According to Barkham, there are more than 160 of these “breeding cat” farms and the numbers speak for themselves: “There are now more lions held in captivity (5,000 up) in the country than those that live in the wild (about 2,000).” According to a quoted witness, the cubs are cheap: they are just stolen from the wild.

In itself, the practice should be a cause for national shame: “While the owners of this ranch insist that they do not hunt and kill their lions, animal welfare groups say most breeders sell their stock to be shot dead by wealthy trophy hunters from Europe and North America, or for traditional medicine in Asia (another “magic” potion). The easy slaughter of animals in fenced areas is called "canned hunting," perhaps because it’s rather like shooting f ish in a barrel. A fully grown, captive-bred lion is taken from its pen to an enclosed area where it wanders listlessly for some hours before being shot dead by a man with a shotgun, hand-gun or even a crossbow, standing safely on the back of a truck. He pays anything from £5,000 to £25,000, and it is all completely legal.”

We started this text with the deserved humiliation of a human king, and we end it with the undeserved and shameful one of a noble animal that, with reason, is known as the king of the jungle.

A mourning mother

I

t was teatime when I and Fr. Joseph Rebelo, after visiting the South African main tourist attraction, the Kruger Park, stopped at the Tshukudu Bush Lodge near Hoedspruit owned by our friends, the Sussens family. We were received at the big, cool veranda, with an open view over the property, from where I could see, but not in great detail, some wild animals. I felt immediately at home, and slightly inebriated by the view and the mysterious smells.

Only the elderly were there, and we had just been invited to sit at the table.

But looking at Mr Lolly, the family patriarch, I understood at once that he was sad. I asked Fr. Joseph, in Portuguese, if something had happened, and he exchanged some words with Mr. Lolly’s wife, Ala. My feeling was right: in the morning, the rhino had unexpectedly attacked the baby elephant, killing it. Forgetting my manners, I stood up and asked permission to go to the mother, who was quite close.

Fr. Joseph and Mr Lolly came with me. But when I reached the mother elephant, I saw – or I imagine that I saw – tears in her eyes. Anyway, she was obviously mourning. Without thinking, I dared to approach and started caressing her body, at the same time I kept repeating the soothing Portuguese words that I use normally with crying children or nervous pets. She kept very quiet all the time. But, somehow, I’m sure that she understood what I was doing and why.

At some distance, the rhino – with its horn sawn, so as not to repeat the deed – also kept his head down, as if he was experiencing shame for his misdeed. Suddenly, I felt one with nature – where life, and the relation between beasts and humans, used to be exactly like this. After a while, we returned to the veranda, and the lady of the house offered us some refreshments. The husband began to talk. The afternoon was perfect, and I keep engraved in my memory every one of those precious moments.

A study published in mid-October suggests that, somehow, I was right.

It is a first glimpse into the intelligence of wild elephants: unlike our closest relatives, the primates, they understand instinctively the meaning of pointing, something that only dogs, domesticated for uncountable generations, are able to do – and they use also the trunk to point. They distinguish between languages too: if someone speaks in a language that they associate with people who kill them, they become nervous; on the contrary, if the person changes to a non-threatening idiom, they feel immediately at ease. My Portuguese childtalk may, after all, have had a soothing effect.

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missionary reflection • Africa’s bad governance

Mobilizing the community bases The adjustment programs, imposed by the blind neo-liberal principles of the international organizations; the corruption induced by corporations, which have the means to buy the political elites; the mining wars – all of these factors contribute to steal the future and hope of the people of Africa. The Church in the continent has started to react, and is asking the faithful to take part in the development struggle. by

Fr. John Converset | comboni missionary

V

arious forms of international intervention in the affairs of African countries delegitimize local governments and disempower the people. One major example is the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), which have often been imposed by the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank as a condition for development assistance or the reduction of international debt. Often, the SAP entails a drastic reduction in public services to the poor, such as health care, education and transportation subsidies; it imposes the devaluation of the local currency and privatization of public services and state-owned industries. Trade liberalization goes hand in hand with SAPs. The debtor nation is forced to export raw materials and agricultural products in competition with other African countries that export the same items. Together with stock market speculation, this competition lowers commodity prices to the benefit of international trading partners and the detriment of the local people.

Within Africa, the immediate consequences are spiraling inf lation on basic items including food, lower wages, increased unemployment and a much lower standard of living for most of the population. SAPs have contributed to the widening gap between “the haves” (mostly those with political connections) and “the have-nots” (those without political connections) as well as to increasing tension between people and their governments.

The privatization of health care in African countries has resulted in a reduc-

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tion in preventive community care and increased rates of illness and mortality. Ghana lost 300,000 public sector health workers in 16 years as a result of SAPs. In many countries, the SAP was accepted and implemented by the political elite without consulting the people; only the elite and their external collaborators benefit. Through discount privatization, multinational corporations and the local elite literally buy the government in some countries and diminish the state’s capacity to provide fundamental public services to its citizens; this severely weakens the citizens’ capacity to meet basic needs and increases tension with the government. A systemic change is needed to reverse the situation. This can be achieved by engaging citizens in shaping their future and how they want to relate to other political entities and multinational corporations. Africa needs water, sanitation, schools, universities, medical hospitals and clinics, roads, bridges, transportation services and other infrastructure to empower its youthful work force and build a future. SAPs privatize much of this infrastructure and discourage government expenditure for the rest, so that only a minute elite benefits.

The mining wars

Illegal mining and theft of resources are other big problems. Some countries are rich in minerals that are coveted by their neighbors and by multinational corporations. For example, North and South Kivu on the Eastern side of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

are rich in agricultural products, hard woods, water and minerals, such as gold, coltan (columbite-tantalite), cassiterite. Rwanda and Uganda have both invaded this area in the past to remove it from the control of the DRC government. Now they sponsor armed “rebel” movements, such as M23, to destabilize the area, and to illegally mine gold and coltan, using slave labor, including child labor. In this way, Rwanda is able to export a huge percentage of the coltan on the world market, although Rwanda has little of its own. Eighty percent of the world’s known coltan deposits lie in the DR Congo, and 90% of the minerals exploited in the Kivu are “exported” through Rwanda. The Eastern DR Congo is also rich in diamonds, copper, cobalt, tin, tungsten, chromium, germanium, nickel, zinc, manganese and uranium. In 2012, the Rwandan Army was gaining $250 million a month from the sale of these items.

The industrialized nations that covet these minerals often turn a blind eye to how they are extracted. In this way, the possibility of national good governance in the DRC is undermined by regional and international interests that employ proxy forces and do not hesitate to foster armed conflict. Trafficking military weapons is often directly related to these proxy conf licts and contributes enormously to the instability of African countries and to the high mortality of civilian populations.

Armed “rebel” factions, such as M23 in the DR Congo and the infamous Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), routinely abduct children and force

them to be soldiers. However, some African governments also have child soldiers in their armed forces. In Chad, armed rebel groups had the greatest number of child soldiers, but the national army also had many. In 2011, Chad signed an agreement with the U.N. to release all child soldiers.

Angola, Central African Republic, Burundi, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somali, Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe and DR Congo all had child soldiers in both military forces and rebel groups during their civil wars. The children who survived have been cheated of an education and are often traumatized and uprooted from their families. Recruiting child soldiers robs a country of future peace and development.

The role of the Church

Both Special Assemblies of the Synod of Bishops for Africa (1994 and 2009) identified and addressed the social and political realities of Africa, including corruption and other problems of governance. “A serious reawakening of conscience linked to a firm determination of will is necessary in order to

put into effect solutions which can no longer be put off” (Ecclesia in Africa, 1995, #110; cf. also 111–114).

Meanwhile, Bishops’ Conferences and regional organizations have become more outspoken. In February 2013, the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) released a long pastoral letter entitled "Governance, the Common Good and Democratic Transitions in Africa." The pastoral letter notes that good governance is part of the common good that all must serve. It demands a greater opportunity for local communities and civil society to participate effectively in decision-making processes and encourages Christians to act with honesty, sincerity, inclusiveness, tolerance and a spirit of service. A “dynamic and functioning partnership between the various social actors (will) enhance transparency, efficiency and effectiveness of political action and decisions of public administrations.”

Noting the enormous gap between the wealth of Africa and the poverty of its people, SECAM urges Africa’s leaders to make poverty eradication a priority, so that all may benefit. This

Africa needs strong civil societies. The Church is a social and “political” actor with a vast network of members and institutions equipped to educate, conscientize and mobilize the public to work for the common good of all the people.

Lusa

 CHILD SOLDIERS. Children are cheated of an education and are often traumatized by wars.

implies putting an end to corruption and having “free, fair, transparent and peaceful” elections. Calling all to take personal responsibility and act effectively, SECAM commits the bishops of Africa to the spiritual, ethical and practical formation of church members and small Christian communities on the basis of the social teaching of the Church.

In October 2013, the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference issued a pastoral letter: A Call to Examine Ourselves in the Widespread Practice of Corruption. The bishops condemned the corruption that hurts the whole community, but especially the most defenseless, and presented ways in which ordinary people can resist corruption.

For this reason, the Africa Faith and Justice Network, in partnership with the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at the Catholic University of America in Washington, is working with SECAM and with African regional offices of justice, peace, development and good governance on a “democracy and empowerment project” to develop and promote “effective and sustained grassroots education, based on Catholic social teaching.” The goal is to promote awareness of the rights and responsibilities of citizens so that the peoples of Africa will be better empowered to transform their social, political and economic environment and to promote strong social and political institutions. Africa needs strong civil societies. The Church is a social and “political” actor with a vast network of members and institutions equipped to educate, conscientize and mobilize the public to work for the common good of all the people.

Part 1 of this article, was based on a presentation by Fr. Aniedi Okure, Executive Director of the Africa Faith and Justice Network in Washington DC, focused on problems in Africa related to faulty governance and the exclusion of people from participation in the political process.

This article highlights a few more problems.

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meditation • MONEY'S TEMPTATIONS

Money is not our master Pope Francis keeps on calling us to listen afresh to the Lord and to open our hearts and minds to the message of the Gospel in an attitude of availability to be challenged and renewed in living our Christian life. He has clearly and powerfully challenged the whole Church not only to be poor but also to be at the side of the poor, to make common cause with those who suffer. His example of simplicity and detachment from riches and money is truly outstanding, and it enables him to approach people in a new way, and to be a sign of hope for everyone. by

Fr. Rinaldo Ronzani | comboni missionary

D

uring the Jubilee Year 2000, several books and articles have explored the implications of the Gospel message concerning the state of today’s economy and the fact that it has taken the lion’s share in our life and seems to be ruling the world. Most authors were of the opinion that it was necessary to reflect on the way in which things were moving in the financial world, as it was in a kind of “unhealthy” state and was, thus, leading the whole humanity towards a major crisis. Their cry fell on deaf ears, since those who were in control of the economy were making a lot of money – always at the expense of the poor – and were not willing to let go of a system that was so lucrative.

There was an implicit consensus among business leaders that success in business and finance had little to do with morality and attention to the person, especially the poor. The main and sole aim of business is to make money (and as much as possible) and embark only on profitable activities, irrespective of any moral or human issues.

Now, we are right in the middle of a world economic crisis which has highlighted more and more the chronic injustice of the world where, once again, the poor have to pay for the shortsightedness and mistakes of politicians and economists. The old financial culture has been beneficial only to a handful of people, in the short term, but it has proved fragile, if not self-destructive, in the long run. And even though both politicians and economists keep on telling us that things are looking brighter

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and that the worst of the crisis is over, deep down, we all know that our present economic system is still fragile.

It is enough for us to look around in order to see that, unless we are ready to make a radical change in the way the economy runs the world, the situation will get worse and more and more people will feel the pinch of the crisis.

Our faith in business has led us to the drain… and, at last, we begin to realize that business has responsibilities to the whole world, to the welfare of people and their dignity, and not only to the enrichment of some shareholders. What has been forgotten is “the common good,” and the only way to move forward and to build a better world, is to reform the business culture.

A constant temptation

The words at the core of our reflection are found in the Gospel passage of the temptations of Jesus. Jesus is led by the Spirit into the desert immediately after having received the baptism at the River Jordan, where he had joined the crowds of people (= sinners) who had gathered to listen to the words of John the Baptist and be baptized. This is how Luke (4:1-4) describes the first temptation of Jesus: “Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were over, He was hungry. The devil said to Him, 'If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.'Jesus answered him, 'It is writ-

ten: ‘One does not live by bread alone.’”

In this first temptation, Jesus replies to the devil by quoting Deut. 8:3, thus making it clear not only that the people of God had already been tempted in the same way, but also that this temptation seems to be rooted in our human makeup. Yes, right from the beginning of history, we see that human beings are deeply attracted to riches and money, and are easily drawn into believing that the best way to value their “worth” is by looking at what they own and possess.

This temptation affects us, too, in different ways: we desire to be rich, to add more money to what we already possess; we envy those who have more than ourselves, and slowly this desire to have more and more makes us selfish, selfcentered, as well as unable to relate to the others as human beings, to respect creation, and to cherish the human values of solidarity, communion, and love. So many negative consequences – for us and for others – spring from this attitude towards money and wealth which ultimately leads to greed!

The vocabulary of life

Jesus tells us that this is not the way in which we find the fullness of life. In the prayer that He taught us, He has told us to ask the Father for “our daily bread,” and not for a bank account, money, etc.

It’s interesting to note that in the Our Father we are taught not only the vocabulary of prayer, namely “You” (and Your) and “our,” but also the vocabulary of life!

We address God as our loving Father (Abba) because all of us are His beloved

sons and daughters, and we pray together asking that all of us be given what we need day in and day out, in order to live in simplicity, and in an attitude of greater fraternity and solidarity, knowing that what we receive from the Father comes to us as a gift to be shared with others.

The time has come for us to sit once again at the feet of the Lord and to listen to His Gospel message which challenges, in a powerful way, the manner in which we live and the values that direct our everyday choices. Many times we look at the Gospel message as something which has to do only with our “souls” and inner life; with God; with what we might call “spirituality” but which does not touch at all our daily life; our relationships with people; with money; politics, ethics, etc. Far too often, we have managed to water down the message of the Lord and to make it not only “nice” and undisruptive, but also harmless, and even supportive of our selfish views and selfish choices.

And yet see that this message is an important message for everyone, not only for the Christians, but for all human beings, if we want to live a “human” life, a life which upholds humanness and the fact that we are created in the image and likeness of

God. And so, one important area for us Christians to reflect upon is that of finances and money. Jesus, especially in the Gospel of Luke, speaks strongly about riches and money, since all of us can easily end up being enslaved by money and riches when we forget that we are beloved sons and daughters of the Father, and that we are brothers and sisters. Our ref lection must lead us to make some concrete choices in order to be builders of a better world.

Money even poisons our faith

Pope Francis keeps on calling us to listen afresh to the Lord and to open our hearts and minds to the message of the Gospel in an attitude of availability to be challenged and renewed in living our Christian life. He has clearly and powerfully challenged the whole Church not only to be poor but also to be at the side of the poor, to make common cause with those who suffer. His example of simplicity and detachment from riches and money is truly outstanding, and it enables him to approach people in a new way, and to be a sign of hope for everyone. Here are some of his words that can help us reflect about our human and Christian life: “Money sickens our minds, poisons our thoughts, even poisons our

Money sickens our minds, poisons our thoughts, even poisons our faith, leading us down the path of jealousy, quarrels, suspicion and conflict. It drives to idle words and pointless discussions. It also corrupts the mind of people that see religion as a source of profit.

 POISON. Greed sickens ours hearts hindering us from making a common cause with the poor.

faith, leading us down the path of jealousy, quarrels, suspicion and conf lict.

It drives to idle words and pointless discussions. It also corrupts the mind of some people that see religion as a source of profit. 'I am Catholic, I go to Mass, everyone thinks well of me... But underneath I have my businesses. I worship money.' And here we have the word we usually find in newspapers: 'Men of corrupted minds.' Money corrupts us! There's no way out.”

As a missionary, I realize that we are called to announce the message of life of the Lord and to enable people of all cultures and languages to share the way they live their human life to the full.

Our business-oriented society takes away from us our human dignity, and makes us instruments of profit.

In this respect, we missionaries, are called to help our communities to know and study “The Social Teaching of the Church” – until now, unfortunately, is a “well kept secret!” In the light of our ref lection and sharing on the social teaching of the Church, which embodies the Gospel values, we shall grow in our understanding of how we are called to live our life to the full as human beings and disciples of Christ, without being enslaved by money and greed.

Then we shall realize that the celebration of the Sunday Eucharist challenges us to be instruments in building greater solidarity and communion, and that it gives us also the energy to make life choices that are in harmony with the message of the Lord. We shall also get the strength to endure the strong temptation to value ourselves according to the logic of money, riches and wealth, and to understand that our worth is to be found in our being sons and daughters of a loving Father – people who use the goods of the earth in order to foster fraternity and justice among all. Slowly, we shall be renewed and strengthened as we learn to put our faith not in business and money, but rather in the Father who provides for all His beloved sons and daughters and who enables them to live a true human life.

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Missionary vocation • Wangari Maathai

The hummingbird revolution Everyone can make a difference. “You don’t need a university degree to plant a tree,” she used to say.

Through her Green Belt Movement, Professor Wangari Maathai (1940-2011) mobilized thousands of women to plant millions of trees in Kenya. This is the lesson that the outstanding woman, pioneer of the African environment, has left us, passionate as she was in bringing forward her apparently “crazy” objective to the point of receiving the Nobel Prize for it in 2004. A convinced Catholic, she was a member of the Legion of Mary throughout her life. Cancer took her prematurely away in 2011. by

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Fr. Lorenzo Carraro | comboni missionary

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ne day a terrible fire broke out in a forest and the enormous wood was suddenly engulfed in wild f lames. All the animals were frightened and escaped from their dens towards only one direction. They arrived at the bank of a big river with a strong current and, turning back, they could only stare at the fire which was consuming their habitat. They felt discouraged and powerless. They all were lamenting the destruction of their home: the wood.

Each one of them thought that there was nothing to do in order to stop the fire… except the hummingbird.

On its part, the hummingbird decided to try. It ran to the stream, collected the little water it could and aimed at the forest fire. There it released on the fire the few drops of water that its beak was able to collect. Then it went back to the stream and repeated the operation. It did it again and again, going to and fro tirelessly. All the other animals stared at the hummingbird in disbelief.

Some of them even tried to dampen its enthusiasm with comments as such: “Stop, leave it! The enterprise is too hard, you are too small, you are going to burn your wings, your beak is so tiny…

It is impossible to extinguish all that fire!” But the hummingbird continued undaunted. At last, the lion shouted: “What are you doing?” The hummingbird, without stopping, answered: “I am doing what I can.”

It was May 2006 and it was with this little story that Professor Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan woman who, two

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years before, had received the Nobel Prize, started her lectio magistralis for the 58th Conference of the Association of International Educators, NAFSA, in front of seven thousand members from all over the world, gathered at Montreal, Canada. “What are you doing?” the neighbors had asked Wangari when they saw her plant her first tree in her garden. She answered:” I am doing what I can.”

She then did the same in the middle of the local market. To the women friends who were staring at her, she explained: “I want to fight against the indiscriminate cutting of trees, the disappearance of the forest, soil erosion, desertification, water pollution, and also against poverty, famine and the slavery of women forced as they are to walk for hours searching for firewood.”

She invited them to do the same: “You don’t need a university degree to plant a tree,” she said. This is how the first tree nurseries were born in many villages of Kenya’s Central Province.

Then the initiative spread everywhere in Kenya. The first environmentalists from Sweden arrived and were fascinated by the hundreds, thousands of women who had become “skilled foresters without a degree.”

Wangari had an idea: “The seedlings are free. Even the work of the women is free. A little incentive, however, would not be bad.” Since then, because of international funding, for each seedling planted and still surviving after three months, the women started receiving few shillings. The government made available to Wangari some public places in the capital, Nairobi, and the Minister of Forestry promised to provide the seedlings free of charge. This was the Green Belt Movement, the brain child of Professor Wangari Maathai.

First woman university professor

Wangari Maathai was born on April 1, 1940, in the Nyeri District in central Kenya, of a family of simple means belonging to the Kikuyo ethnic group.

Nothing is more beautiful than cultivating the land at dusk.

At that time of day, in the central highlands, the air and the soil are cool, the sun is going down, the sunlight is golden against the ridges and the green of trees, and there is usually a breeze.

She was, however, privileged to live in a part of the country of a breath-taking beauty, close to Mount Kenya, which the Kikuyu people call Kiri Nyaga (the Creator’s House) and to the Aberdare Range, the largest forest and water reservoir of the country. As she beautifully writes, the experiences of her very young age shaped her love for the land: “Nothing is more beautiful than cultivating the land at dusk. At that time of day, in the central highlands, the air and the soil are cool, the sun is going down, the sunlight is golden against the ridges and the green of trees, and there is usually a breeze. As you remove the weeds and press the earth around the crops, you feel content, and wish the light would last longer so you could cultivate more. Earth and water, air and waning fire of the sun combine to form the essential elements of life and reveal to me my kinship with the soil.

"When I was a child, I sometimes became so absorbed working in the fields with my machete that I didn’t notice the end of the day until it got so dark that I could no longer differentiate between weeds and crops. At that point, I knew it was time to go home, on the narrow paths that crisscrossed the

fields and rivers and woodlots.”

As all the girls of the same age, Wangari was dreaming of going to school. She was more courageous than most and it was not difficult for her to fulfill her desires. She received quality education first with the Consolata Sisters and later with the Loreto Sisters.

This was the solid foundation on which she later on built her future in teaching, in politics and in civil responsibility.

She then got a scholarship to study in the United States of America from an initiative that was supported by one of the leading promoters of national independence, Tom Mboya as well as the Kennedy Foundation on behalf of the Kenyan youth preparing for leadership positions. In 1964, she took a diploma in Biology and, in 1966, a degree in Science at Pittsburgh University in Pennsylvania. In 1971, back in Kenya, she completed her doctorate at Nairobi University. She then started teaching at the university. She was the first woman in East Africa to gain a Ph.D and to hold the position of university professor.

Wangari’s love for nature was soon tested by the population explosion and, consequently, by the need of growing ever more food. Moreover, in order to

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support the agricultural needs, people started cutting the nearby forests in order to extend their fields. In those years, it was almost impossible to make the farmers understand that, in the long run, the deforestation would have devastating effects also in agriculture and in the whole environment. Therefore, when Wangari started the campaign in favor of the land, many people looked at her with hostility.

The Green Belt Movement

Notwithstanding the opposition, Wangari did not bend and even risking her personal safety, kept on with determination on the road she had started. For her, Mother Nature, as she used to say, needed first to be respected in order for people to enjoy the benefits of her goodness. In harmony with the African spirituality, Wangari cared first for the indigenous trees, the roots of which contributed considerably to check the soil erosion, and in particular, the mugumu tree, under the shade of which the most important meetings of the community were taking place since the ancestors used to value it as a manifestation of the vitality and creative power of God. Wangari had a special concern towards the young generations, aware as she was of the many implications of inheriting a totally exhausted land, robbed of its resources.

The efforts to keep the integrity of the environment found a concretization in 1977 with the birth of the Green Belt Movement that Wangari started and promoted. The main objectives of the initiative were to exercise pressure on the politicians in order to foster laws respectful of nature and spread the education about the environment among the youth, especially mobilizing the women. Kakura Forest, Uhuru Park and the Great Lakes Region will be remembered as among the most relevant initiatives in which Wangari lavished her competence and energies.

Kakura Forest is the main green lung of Nairobi, a section of the urban area always in the sight of develop-

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The Green Belt Movement became the spokesman of these areas and, up to the present, it maintains a network of educational activities. To plant trees is now a set feature in all the social gatherings of the area. ers and corrupt politicians engaged in building construction. Uhuru Park is the second green lung of the capital, a welcoming area for the free gatherings of the population, especially the slum dwellers. In order to defend the integrity of these two zones, Wangari had to face opposition, mudslinging campaigns and even political emargination.

In the Great Lakes Region, the huge African rivers – the Nile, the Congo and the Zambezi – are where so many endangered animal species originate and thrive. The Green Belt Movement became the spokesman of these areas and, up to the present, it maintains a network of educational activities. To plant trees is now a set feature in all the social gatherings of the area.

Wangari married in 1969 and had three children, but her powerful personality was too much for her husband who separated from her and eventually filed for divorce in 1979, saying that she was “a too strong-minded woman” and that he was unable “to control her.”

Since then, Wangari’s life was a solitary, even if successful, battle.

Saving Uhuru Park

As long as the women limited themselves to planting trees, there was

nothing for the politicians to be afraid of. So much so that, in a few years, the plant nurseries had become six thousand and the “foresters without a degree,” more than eighty thousand.

They could be all potential voters at the moment of political elections. On the other hand, the new forests could only please the politicians whose sawmills were indiscriminately laying the woods in waste and whose foresters kept underselling the natural wealth of the country. But Wangari had something else in her mind.

“It is not only a question of reforesting the country – she stated but also of fighting for democracy and the respect of human rights.” She wanted especially to empower the women through seminars, laboratories, demonstrations and ecological initiatives in which science, social commitment and political education could go together. The Green Belt Movement became a network of initiatives concerning women education, family planning and campaigns against corruption.

The idea became popular also outside Kenya: in Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Lesotho, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe women got together to promote Wangari’s ideals. The experts in the

Missionary vocation • Wangari Maathai environment from all over the world started appreciating Wangari. Several acknowledgments and awards started materializing, among them the Goldman Foundation Award (1991) which represents a kind of Nobel Prize among the ecologists. But the most pleasing acknowledgment was conferred to Wangari by her fellow women who called her their “Freedom Fighter.”

One of the most telling examples was when President Arap Moi himself wanted to build a 60-storey skyscraper right in the middle of the Uhuru Park, the central park of Nairobi, the capital. The budget for the building was 200 million dollars. Wangari shouted: “Uhuru means freedom, but this skyscraper is the exact opposite because it will destroy the last green island of the capital.” Wangari won and the project was abandoned.

The victory, however, was paid for dearly. The NGO Green Belt Movement was chased out of the government buildings and gangs close to Moi destroyed several seedling nurseries.

A mudslinging campaign against Wangari was launched and President Moi himself called her “a crazy woman.” Of course the crazy trait shown by Wangari was her far-sighted commitment for the environment, something which is now taken for granted by the majority.

At the service of peace

In October 2004, Wangari Maathai was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.

The Nobel Prize at last came to an African woman, as representative of the

heroic African women who are the backbone of their families and countries. In the written motivation for the award, “Wangari’s contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace” are clearly mentioned. This sums up her steady commitment for the environment, her civic passion for the respect of human rights and the promotion of peace among peoples: a precious heritage worth keeping and valuing by everybody.

She wrote: “Although I was a highly educated woman, it did not seem odd to me to be working with my hands, often with my knees on the ground, alongside rural women. Some politicians and others in the 1980’s and1990’s ridiculed me for doing so. But I had no problem with it, and the rural women both accepted and appreciated that I was working with them to improve their lives and the environment. After all, I was a child of the same soil. Education, if it means anything, should not take people away from the land, but instill in them even more respect for it because educated people are in a position to understand what is being lost. The future of the planet concerns all of us and we should do what we can to protect it.”

In Africa, the binomial environment and peace constitutes an unbreakable reality: in fact, in no other continent is the desertification so worrying as the one that has happened in many African countries. And when the desert advances, the essential life infrastructures are lacking and entire peoples are forced to migrate in search

of pastures, water, sustenance. Situations as such trigger strong tensions and social instability.

In her book, "The Religion of the Earth," Wangari Maathai quotes, several times, Pope Benedict XVI’s message for the World Day of Prayer for Peace (January 1, 2010) on the theme: “If we want to keep peace, we must respect creation.” Wangari, peaceful champion of the environment, lived for all this and, in her person, peace, solidarity and citizenship became one single reality. She was then an elected member of Parliament and served as Assistant Minister for Environment and Natural Resources in the government of President Mwai Kibaki between January 2003 and November 2005.

Wangari died of cancer in 2011.

Now, the indomitable messenger of the forests rests in the shade of the Democratic Space, in Kabele Campus of Nairobi University. In addition to the state funeral which took place in Uhuru Park and the religious ceremonies in Nairobi Catholic Cathedral, several moments of interreligious, ecumenical prayer took place in the capital and five thousand seedlings were planted in her memory.

A convinced, practicing Catholic and member of the Legion of Mary for her whole life, Wangari Maathai was, however, always very discreet in the practice of her faith, but public was her appreciation for whatever could unite the faithful of different denominations and religions in building a society that was nature friendly and respectful of all its inhabitants.

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the last word

PETER’S ECSTASY AND AN OPEN CHURCH by

Fr . SILVANO FAUSTI, s.J. | BIBLIST & WRITER

“Rise, Peter; kill and eat.”

– Read Acts 10:9-23

During his apostolic visitations which appear to be late and scarce, Peter takes his lodgings wherever he happens to be. Now he is at Jaffa, at Simon the tanner’s house which looks at the open sea. He is easily accessible. His “perfume,” which for God is more sweet-smelling than any incense, can be caught by any nose whether pagan or Christian.

Peter’s threefold vision following the announcement to Cornelius, is necessary. Otherwise, by himself, the head of the apostles would hardly have gone to a pagan. Neither would he have understood Christianity! God is at work where we do not suspect. He is, towards His children, a fatherly/motherly love; He is present where the greatest need is. Through those who are far away, He calls us, who are near, to understand who He is and who we are. Jesus, the Son who knows the Father’s love, came to save all, starting from the excluded ones.

The Church doesn’t have her center in herself: she doesn’t call people to enter unto herself, but is called to go out towards everybody. It shouldn’t be the other people to adapt to us but we to them. The Church is not a sheepfold where sheep are enclosed in order to be milked, sheared and destined to the “holy slaughter.” Jesus takes them out of all the religious enclosures as many as they are! He gathers them into a flock that He leads to the pastures of life. And life for us human beings is the freedom of the children of God. He is the Good Shepherd because he is the Lamb who exposes, disposes and puts down His life for His sheep (Cf. John 10: 1ff ). Peter also will learn to feed the flock with the same love that his Master and Lord had for him (John 21:15ff).

The hungry Peter goes into ecstasies. He is “out of himself” like Adam when Eve is born of him, like Abraham when he makes a covenant with God (Genesis 2:21; 15:12). He sees a kind of vase, like a bundle which contains all creatures. It is God’s maternal womb: there everything is born and there everything is fed and lives. It comes down from heaven and goes up to heaven like Jesus. The universe is created through the Son, in view of Him and in Him (Colossians 1:15ff ): He is the life of all that exists (John 1:3-4).

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The Father’s voice- his only countenance on earth is the Son who listens to Him (Mark 1:11; 9:7) – orders Peter to do what He is doing. “Kill and eat!” Peter is killing the pagans in order to make them pious Jews like himself. His reluctance to “eat” is understandable: they are going to stay in his stomach. He can’t digest the cultural differences. God instead loves them. He makes us different so that our diversity may become a place of communion. If we accept what is different/other from us, we accept God who is “not other from all others,” and we become like Him who is love that accepts all.

Peter doesn’t want to go to the pagans. To obey God’s voice is for him an agony, the same as for Jesus in the Garden of Olives (compare Acts 10: with John 18:4ff ). Jesus prays and sweats blood in order to pass from His will to the Father’s. Instead, Peter three times declares that he will never do what is commanded. He will be forced by the facts. Woe to us if we wrap ourselves up in ideas, rites and rights. It is not important to be Jew – read “Christian” – or pagan. God is Father to all and works in all. In accepting the pagan, I accept God’s identity as Father and I as son who is sent to witness God’s love to all.

The Church is always tempted to become a sect, separated from “the world.” Instead of criticizing it in order to assimilate it to ourselves, we should enter as guests into its house. This is how the Son has done with us. Peter’s difficulties in overcoming his “taboos” as regards a Roman were, up to some little time ago, the same as the Vatican’s in accepting the present world; different from the Church as a pagan was different from a good Jew of that time. Cultural prejudices are stronger than any faith. They are like the eyes through which we see and value everything: they are like non-negotiable values. One example: the saintly King David was forgiven for murdering Uriah to steal his wife. If, however, he had eaten a pork chop, he would have become an impious renegade. Woe to us if we follow our intolerant cultural bias instead of the Lord’s command! © Popoli – www.popoli.info

REFLECT AND PRAY – Do you consider yourself free from prejudices and better than other people? Are you quick in judging and condemning others?

– Do you understand and appreciate the present position of fostering tolerance and dialogue?

– Do you think, as a consequence, that all religions are the same or are you aware of the “Christian difference”?

“ To know you are an instrument of God’s healing is an incredible feeling.”

- Br. Gene Gizzi, CFA

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in our prophetic and daring response to his Gospel.

“We need to grow in a solidarity which would allow all peoples to become the artisans of their destiny.�

- Evangelii Gaudium n. 190